


Kan Was An Ordinary Shy Guy

by KaptainKovee



Series: Super Luigi World [3]
Category: Super Mario & Related Fandoms
Genre: Comedy, Gen, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2020-03-29 16:24:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 35,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19023589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaptainKovee/pseuds/KaptainKovee
Summary: I'm not sure what you're expecting to see here. He's just an ordinary Shy Guy. Look away. There is no description. Yes, that's right, skim right over it. He's completely regular. There's nothing abnormal about him whatsoever. He's about as plain as a Shy Guy can get. Utterly normal. Don't believe me? Just ask the enchanted ship possessed by the immortal soul of a pirate.





	1. Ordinary

Kan was a simple Shy Guy. Oh, yes, very normal. There was nothing remarkable about Kan. No, indeed, he was as unremarkable as a can. Can a can be remarkable? Well, Kan can, thought Kan. But only Kan thought that Kan could. At least, as far as Kan knew.

However, as an unremarkable Shy Guy, what could that imply about Kan? Well, clearly, what is it that ordinary Shy Guys are inclined to do? Most Shy Guys are found to be bandits and crooks. And, as one of the many, Kan fell into that very same category, as there was nothing at all remarkable about Kan.

Kan was a crook who had his little shy eyes on the bigger shy prize. The other Shy Guys couldn't compare, much to Kan's shy surprise. A large diamond, a levitating blue jewel resonating with powerful magic, on the pedestal to be glorified in the Toad's great museum. Nobody really knew what the thing did, but everyone knew that it looked pretty. And they knew it looked new, which was no news in the Toad's news. In fact, the electric blue diamond got front headlines on the newspaper three days in a row.

"Toadburg's Blue Diamond! Still Blue and Still a Diamond!" This headline got the attention of Shy Guys for all three of those days. All of the others were plain, ordinary and none of them specially trained in any way. But Kan! Kan was different! But only in that he was the 694th Shy Guy to attempt to steal this diamond, as opposed to the 693rd!

"You know what they say," Kan thought to himself, "694th time's the charm."

The Shy Guy adjusted his belt, puffed out his little chest, then marched towards the museum, straight out of the door of his hut. The hut in itself was unremarkable, like him. A small square with a window, a front garden, and of course, a flag with his mask on it sticking out of the roof. Very simple, as any other Shy Guy would have.

It was only after the first few steps that Kan realized he had no idea how to get to the museum. But he would find a way! Even if he was an absolutely boring Shy Guy, it would only take the brains of an ordinary person to figure out something as ordinary as this museum.

Kan strolled his way on his stump legs to the town of Toads. Red Toads, blue Toads, yellow Toads and orange Toads were walking to and fro; colors of all sorts were effectively everywhere. Other creatures were also there. Koopas who'd turned away from Bowser's authority were strolling about on the busy streets, so were a few Bob-ombs. Kan was more inclined to trust these creatures, rather than the regular Toads.

Kan tracked down the nearest Bob-omb that he could find, just a regular, black, sentient explosive making his way through life. He stopped the Bob-omb in his tracks. "Excuse me! Do you know where the museum is?"

"No, not particularly. My interests lay elsewhere. I want to be a pirate! BOMB! It's always been my dream to be a part of the cannon fighters. BOMB BOMB!"

"But the museum!"

"But pirates!"

It was at this moment that Kan realized this Bob-omb actually did have the intelligence of a sentient explosive. He decided to end the conversation here. "I hope that you become a pirate someday! I just know you'll be an eruption of heroism!"

"Of course, it'll be a real blast! I'll see you later!"

Kan made a note to self: Never speak with Bob-ombs again. Thankfully, a nearby Koopa was coming his way. What a coincidence. Hopefully this man would have a little more concentration time than the Bob-omb. Kan greeted him with a wave. "H... Hello."

The Koopa looked to Kan. Kan was amazed. He didn't think that this would work so smoothly.

"Oh hey there, guy! You looking for the museum? Everyone is recently. They really like that big ol' jewel."

"Oh! So, you're telling me that I'm not out of the ordinary for wanting to see the museum?" Kan began to rub his tiny stub hands together, menacingly. "Excellent..."

The green shelled compadre pointed off to a large building in the distance. It was wide and proud, and it looked like it was carved entirely out of stone. "See that palace-looking place over yonder? Yeah, that's where you wanna go. Check it out, man! You'll seriously love the way the artists mask their paintings."

The Shy Guy couldn't help feeling the slightest bit self-conscious when he said 'mask.' "Wow! Sounds... relatable!"

The Koopa glanced Kan over several times, as though analyzing him, then analyzing his analysis, which was then further analyzed analytically. "Say, you don't have anything planned, do you?"

Kan could feel himself starting to sweat. "Plans? What plans? I don't have any plans. Not at all. No plans here. I couldn't have less of a plan. I have no idea what I'm doing with my life. I've always been a scatter-brained clutz ever since I was a child. A wee little Guy, confused in the way of his life without any plans. I don't have any plans at all. Nope."

The Koopa looked at him.

Kan stood stiff.

The Koopa looked at him a little closer.

Kan was getting uncomfortable.

The Koopa leaned in painfully close and violently sniffed.

Kan didn't know what was going on anymore.

"Okay! Just being sure! I believe you, totally! By the way, my name's Rok! Nice to meet you!"

Kan was sweating still. He wiped some of the nervous residue away from his forehead. "Right. And you as well. Very open of you, might I add, haha..."

"Yeah, thanks! I actually used to be reclusive, so I'm working on getting out of my shell!"

"That's wonderful, Rok, I'm sure that you'll really toss the competition right out of the ocean!"

As Kan approached the tall, stone building, he couldn't help but feel smaller by comparison as he approached it. Things do look smaller when they're further away, and much bigger when they're closer up. Kan started to wonder something. If he felt increasingly shrunk with every step he took as he approached the building, was he actually making any real progress? After all, the smaller he was, the less distance he would be making. If he was half the size, he would be going half the distance. And the more he shrunk, the less distance he would be making. In Shy Guy's little brain, which seemed to be getting smaller in comparison to the brain that was ten steps behind, he could take as many steps as he wanted. But he would always be at least one step away.

Thankfully, this was just a mathematical hypothesis. And the real Kan was actually close by. Yes, this was not some ridiculous equation. This was a little Shy Guy's little shy life. And goodness, he was going to live it.

Kan made his way into the museum. There were many artifacts and paintings to be found within, crafted by the finest artisans that the community had to offer. So, effectively, a Goomba painting something in their mother's basement. It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

Kan knew that this was his time to act. He scurried silently through the museum. The quiet little Shy Guy just knew that he was the stealthiest of them all. Some Toads thought he looked kind of odd to see a small Shy Guy dodging around on his equally small stub legs. Cleary they couldn't see genius when it was there.

He tiptoed to the edge of a wall. Fiendishly. Looking past the corner, Kan saw the purpose of his existence. At least, the purpose that had defined it for the past three days. The blue jewel of legend. The object that would give him more money than he could ever hope to spend, and more recognition than any other Shy Guy before him.

"HI. Hello!"

By the stars, it was a Toad. Museum Toad, to be specific. Yes, they're all very unique to each other. It's not like they all talk in that same, loud, annoying voice that everyone hated. It clearly mattered so much what title they had, because that gave them all the defining characteristics they needed.

"Oh. Hello, Museum Toad. Funny seeing you here. I was just standing harmlessly in this corner. What were you doing?"

"I was watching you! I can't help but wonder why you were standing there! Doesn't seem too harmless to me!"

Kan shifted his gaze to the side, because it was a very Kan thing to do. "Oh? And why would that be? I didn't take you to be a detective, Museum Toad."

Museum Toad leaned in.

Kan had the worst sense of deja vu.

Thankfully, Museum Toad did not decide to violently sniff. No, he did something which was even worse. He maintained eye contact, and simply stared at Kan.

Kan was waiting for Museum Toad to answer his question.

Museum Toad did not answer his question. He simply stood there. Staring at him. For a very long time.

Kan stared back.

They gazed into each other's eyes for a moment. Kan wasn't sure what type of feelings he got when he gazed into the speculating eyes of the Toad. Did he want a kiss? A cookie? The keys to his car? By god, this was awkward.

Kan was beginning to wonder when this would end.

Kan broke the silence. "Why wouldn't my skulking be-"

"I've got my eyes on you, Mr. Guy... Come near this diamond jewel of sparkilness, and I'll have the guards come and haul you outta here! Understand?"

"Of course! I wasn't planning on stealing anything whatsoever. Please, you have no reason to keep such a sharp eye on a harmless little Guy like me. I promise."

The Museum Toad stared at him for a bit longer. At last, he broke eye contact and simply walked away. Kan couldn't help but feel a tad bit self-conscious, considering that this was the second time something like this had happened to him today. He didn't know whether to feel vulnerable or attractive.

Now that he was alone, Kan stared at the jewel. Honestly, he wasn't exactly certain how he was going to get out of here with it. Truth be told, he never thought he'd get this far. He wouldn't be able to just walk out with it, which had been his plan all along if he was honest. Kan wasn't the cleverest of them all. No, sir, he was as plain as the rest of them.

Thankfully, he was confident in his hoodie's ability to defy the laws of physics and space. He would simply stuff the massive thing in his pocket. Yes. That's what he would do. It was perfect. A fool-proof plan.

The Shy Guy took off his belt from around his hoodie (truly an exquisite choice of fashion) and spun it around like a lassal. His plan: whip it towards the jewel, pull back, and claim it as his own. What a shame it was that nothing like that happened.

He shot it toward the jewel and missed entirely. Oh dear. It hit a painting instead. Somehow it was deflected from the painting, bouncing off to an expensive looking sculpture of Princess Daisy. Kan gasped, fearing the worst. It merely bounced off the sculpture, towards an even fancier recreation of the world-famous painting, the Mona Pizza. Kan covered his eyes, drenched in his own sweat as tension filled his body. It went right past the painting, and instead found itself wrapped around a pinkish white pearl the size of a bowling ball. Kan uncovered his eyes, realizing what had just happened. For a moment, he was surprised that nothing had gone wrong. Huh. What a relief.

This wasn't exactly the legendary item that everyone had been after this whole time, but it would do. He pulled the item towards him. Sadly, he did not account for all the priceless items in between him and the object. He knocked over a fancy steel armor set, which then calmly fell over sideways. It smacked into a sculpture of Toadsworth. Then into the first and largest lollipop to ever reach 200 years old, standing at 7 feet tall. Or, now falling at 7 feet tall. Numerous other miscellaneous items fell over like a dominos effect, which created a cacophony of clanging and banging for all the world to hear.

Kan was about to scream and cry. The pearl fell into his hands from his belt.

Well, at least nobody was here to witness any of that.

"Oh my God!" screamed a familiar toad. "Oh boy! Oh golly! Oh gee!"

Kan turned around to see the Toad, still holding the pearl in his hands while the museum rested in mostly ruins. He was sweating. Everything was broken except for the massive gem he was after in the first place. Of course. He held the pearl behind his back. "This isn't what it looks like."

"This is exactly what it looks like, Guy! I know what's going on here!"

Kan held his breath.

"You left your belt undone and then you tripped and fell, causing this whole mess! I told them they shouldn't have put all those fancy things together like that in a row, it's a recipe for disaster!"

Honestly the lucky little Shy Guy couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Oh. I mean. Yeah. Haha. Clumsy me. Whoops."

"Fucking CHRIST!" exclaimed the Toad in his shrill Toad voice. "You carry along now, Guy, while the rest of us Toads clean up this mess. We're sorry for your inconvenience! Come again!"

The Shy Guy walked away with his pearl. Something had actually gone right for him today. Wow. That was entirely unexpected, if he was honest. Kan quickly scurried back to his little hut, his legs darting around like Sonic. The mere thought of Sonic was making him hungry. It was his favorite drive thru food joint after all.

Once he was back home, he slammed the door and pressed his back against it. He had no idea how on earth someone as plain and ordinary as him could have managed to walk away with such a humungus score. He'd actually stolen something from the museum. Certainly it wasn't what he was after, but it was something. "Wrow," he uttered quietly.

Wrow was right.

He held the pearl, and examined it closely. He rubbed his hands on it, polishing it to make sure it was in perfect shape. He gazed at it. The little Shy Guy could see his mask in the reflection of the orb, misshapen as though looking into a spoon. It was so sparkly and pristine. Amazing.

At once his reflection turned into that of a living, cackling skeleton wearing a pirate's hat. "YAHR MATEY!"

Kan quickly dropped it, recoiling as it rolled across the wooden floor. The gross cackling continued on until it hit the edge of his bed. "I can see ye stole back me secret treasure! Iffin' yer prepared to swipe something so precious to me, ye must be a master! A well trained thief! Come to the nearest docks tonight, and bring every ounce of skill ye have with ye! I have a proposition for ye! One ye can't refuse!" The pearl continued to cackle like a brute. The noise dwindled further, and further, until it eventually fell silent.

Kan just stared at the pearl, trying to understand what the nature of what funky fresh enchantment was going on. "...I beg your pardon?"


	2. Pirates

Kan had gone to the docks that night as he was so instructed by the mysterious voice in the orb. He’d brought the enchanted pearl along with him inside his handy-dandy backpack. The young Shy Guy waited around as the full moon lit the skies. It was an odd wait. A wait that bore a lot of weight. The weight of the wait weighed heavily over Kan’s tiny shoulders. How much weight was behind this wait? So much... So much weight just to wait.  
The water splashed underneath the docks and sang its song of the ocean.  
Kan heard distant footsteps from behind him. His heart lurched. Trembling, the little Shy Guy spun around. “I’ve faced world-enders! I’m a brave little guy, just try me!”  
Before him was a tiny little Bob-omb. It looked familiar. “Say, do I know you?” the Bob-omb inquired inquisitively as his inky, alabaster irises eyed the shy, young guy. “I feel like we’ve met somewhere before.”  
Kan’s guard was still up. Did he trust this buffoon? Did he dare let his guard down on the haunted docks? The Shy Guy dared daringly to ease his shoulders. He became slightly less tense. “‘Met somewhere before,’ you say. You know, sir, I think we have met... Was that earlier today? I think I must have bumped into you...” Kan not only remembered the event but also recalled how absolutely dumb this fellow was. “Oh dear. You’re that fellow. Why are you even here?”  
“I come out here every night,” the Bob-omb began. “It all started when I was a young child.”   
Kan braced himself for a boring backstory. “Here we go.”  
“See, my mother exploded for show-and-tell when I was in kindergarten and—”   
“Ayo!” called another vaguely familiar voice. “Guy! Pak!”  
Kan eyed the newcomer. It was Rok, the Koopa he met earlier today as well. He was running over to join the two of them by the dockside. Judging by the other name he shouted, that must be what this stupid Bob-omb called himself. These random bystanders were apparently less random than he thought. Could it be that they existed more than just to be random, pointless background characters? That seemed impossible to the young Shy Guy. They were so... stupid.  
Panting, Rok joined them at last. “Hey, Pak! Did you get a boyfriend while I was gone or what?”  
Pak blushed as sweat trickled down his circular face. “Uh. It’s not-BOMB-like that. Uh, we’re just-B-BOMB-BOMB-friends.”  
“Yeah,” Kan added shyly as he gazed out to the docks, “I don’t date... uh... people. At all.”  
“I’m just teasing you, guy!” Rok grinned as he punched Kan in the face, who recoiled and put his little stub hands on his nose. “Hey, could you tell me what your name was again? I seem to have forgotten!” came the request, as well as the second fist which connected to Kan’s cheek.  
“Why... are you punching me? I’m... Kan. I’m just a Shy Guy.”  
“And I’m just a Koopa!” enthused Rok, drawing back his fist again. “And this is how my friends greet each other in dark spooky alleyways.” He paused and took a moment to examine his own fist. “Observe exhibit A. Notice how menacing it looks. If you can blend in with the dark, spooky nature of the night-time life, then nobody will want to mess with you! Ya gotta look tough, guy!”  
Without warning, the ground suddenly began to rumble to interrupt the one-sided fistfight. “What in the hoo-haw? BOMB,” wondered the small Bob-omb.   
The water outside of the docks began to bubble uncontrollably, as though the ocean were boiling. Bursting far apart from each other, geysers of water escaped from the blanketing body. To fill in the spaces between the geysers, a large, wooden ship that looked rotted slowly began to rise from its submergence. Atop the ship was a Dry Bones wearing a pirate’s hat. The undead pirate held two cutlasses and stood high atop the crow’s nest. He gazed down at the crew from above. “Ahoy, me masked wonder man! Have ye brought yer crew along with ye? I weren't expecting others, but they be more than welcome, say I!”  
Kan stared at the undead Koopa as the pirate began to cackle. Kan looked at Pak and Rok, then back to the Dry Bones. “C-Crew? Wait, what? What?”  
“The Japense say nani instead of what,” Pak informed the group. The little Bob-omb beamed happily. “I know so much.”  
“That’s super impressive, Pak!” Rok enthused. “You know, like, everything!”  
The Bob-omb blubbered out its signature sound of excitement as he continued to grin.  
The Dry Bones eyed the two next to Kan as they exchanged dialogue. “Y’could use some pirate’s garb... but other than that, yer golden! For the expert thief in red, on the other hand, I daresay I needn't change his looks...”  
“‘Expert thief?’” Kan echoed. “L-Listen, that reminds me: you called me a master thief, too, right? I don’t wanna bust your bubble, but there’s gotta be—”  
“I have a quest for ye!” The Dry Bones bellowed. “I be called Captain Mud around here, cuz I been stuck in the mud for all these years! I been waiting for someone to steal me pearl, y’see, before I could assemble the perfect crew! I wouldn’t want to assemble a bunch of amateurs, y'know!”  
Rok picked his nose for a minute and flicked the booger away. Staring at the ground, Pak didn’t look like he was paying attention. Kan stared at the two of them for a moment. Overwhelmed with disappointment, the Shy Guy buried his face in his little hands. “Dear stars...”  
Captain Mud shouted once again, “But as for the quest! Rumor has it that there is an ancient treasure sealed away with a powerful spell! With ye three expert thieves by my side, thar’d be no stopping us!”  
Kan looked at Captain Mud from behind his hands. Rok’s eyes widened. Pak’s attention had been captured. “Tuh-tuh... treasure?” the Bob-omb echoed.  
The hatted Dry Bones grinned at them as his voice carried from the crow’s nest. “Aye, matey! More treasure than any of us could possibly hold! It’s become nothin' more than a fairytale after generations of time—long enough for me to become bones anywho—but thar exists an ancient artifact which can grant ye limitless gold. It be like a gold-generator! It fulfills any alchemist’s dream, say I, truthfully! Ye’ll be wallowin’ in the treasure like a fat little kiddy in a pool!”  
“Gold...” Pak marveled.  
“Limitless...” Rok whispered, awe-struck.  
“Seems fake,” Kan muttered.  
Somehow, Captain Mud had heard Kan from that distance. “If it were so fake, ye dense, dopey little dimwit, would I have turned to bones waitin' for the perfect crew just to plunder it?! It must be ours! If we all split infinite gold, we’ll each still have infinite gold! There be nary a loser in this situation, y’see! 'Tis basic maths, yar!”  
“I don’t know,” Kan started. “I guess you’re right...”  
“Pirates!” Pak shouted. “I’ve always wanted to be a pirate! It’s been my dream since I was a baby boomin’ Bob-omb! I’ll join immediately!”  
“And Kan and I will too!” Rok declared on Kan’s behalf.  
“W-Wait. Wait, hold on, I never—”  
“'Tis been decided then!” shouted the Dry Bones as he pointed his curved sword to the starry sky. “We be a crew! The Scurvy Scumbag will set sail once again!”


	3. Darn Bloopin'!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bloobloop-bloopy bloop bloop bloopy, bloobloobloopy bloobloop bloobloobloop. Bloobloobloopity-bloobloop BLOOPITY BLOOBLOOP bloopy-bloobloop! BLOOPY-BLOOBLOOP!

They’d set sail since last night, presumably for endless riches. The moon had fallen while they slept, and the sun blessed the seas with its light once more. Thank God, it had been dark all night. The water sparkled just like gold... Well, what more could a Shy Guy ask for? He loved endless things and riches. This was the culmination of both of those concepts. The only problem was the Shy Guy’s environment; Kan was surrounded by dinguses. They’d all slept together in the same bunker within the ship while their superior was outside manning it. Kan had claimed the lower bed-bunk, while Rok took the higher one. Another bunk bed sat parallel to theirs which housed only Pak, who snored with quiet little whistles. Nobody was sure whether or not Captain Mud was going to use the empty space above Pak. Because he was undead, everyone just assumed that he didn’t need to sleep.   
“Ahoy!” Captain Mud shouted from outside. “Wake up, ye hooligans! We be approachin' our destination!”  
Kan sat up slowly. Rok, stretching and rubbing one of his eyes, was even slower to arise. “Wait, where are we even goin’?” Rok asked. “Did he ever tell us? Or did we just follow blindly?”  
“We just followed blindly,” responded Pak, sitting up with no problem as he suddenly sprung into apparent awakeness. The Bob-omb rolled out of the bunk and waddled over to their captain. “C’mon, maties! Adventure’s-a waitin’!”  
“Hang on a tick,” Kan muttered to himself, “that guy’s stealing the captain’s accent...”  
“Yeah,” Rok said through a yawn, “he’s, like, totally easy to influence, dude. Once he sounded like a surfer boy for three whole days, and I just couldn’t snap him out of it, man!”  
Kan rolled his eyes. “I wonder why...”  
The Shy Guy hopped out of bed and followed Pak towards the captain. They both walked out of the bunker, Rok joining shortly afterwards lethargically.  
“Hey,” Pak began, “Mr. Captain, sir? BOMB. Are we almost at the legendary treasure you told us about, or...?”  
“Heavens no!” Captain Mud barked back at the sentient explosive. “Didn’t I tell ye the specifics, ye half-witted dolt?”  
“No,” Kan stated frankly. “You just said something about a treasure. These two signed up without question and dragged me along with them. You just cackled the whole night while we went to bed.”  
“Oh.” The pirate glanced away from them. He looked a bit embarrassed. “I suppose we were all a bit too excited fer a moment there.” He returned to his explosive self in a heartbeat. “Alright, then, ye cretins! Listen well! Before we can be gettin’ to our booty, we first must find the legendary artifacts to break its seal! As I said, 'tis a powerful magical item! Long ago, ancient wizards feared its power and locked the bloomin’ thing away. In order to break the seal, we’d need magical items and a will strong enough to control them!”  
“Wait, what?” Rok stammered out, trying to wrap his rocky brain around this concept. “So, like, you mean that a bunch of fat, old guys worked together to seal something away that would give us infinite money? That’s wack, yo.”  
The Bob-omb had been staring at the wooden flooring beneath them. He began to blink rapidly and then redirected his attention to Captain Mud. “Can you say that again?” Pak requested. “I kinda spaced out there for a second.”  
“Or we could find a wand,” Kan muttered. “You know, like the ones that Bowser has...”  
The Dry Bones’s words seemed to slap Kan across the face. “Nonsense, ye fool! All ye need is willpower! If there’s a will, thar be a way! 'Tis magic! Don’t need no explainin’ with fancy-schmancy science terms or wandy doohickies!”  
“No, seriously,” Pak continued. “What did you say earlier?”  
Rok nudged Pak a little bit and whispered, “He forgot to tell us that we have other things to do before we can get the treasure. Sorta like a video game character...”  
“Aye!” Captain Mud shouted. His hearing was nothing short of impeccable. “Exactly like that! Before we can get the treasure, we must first find ourselves four items: an egg from a Yoshi, a Shine Sprite, the Beanstar, and a Power Moon! Once we’ve retrieved all four of these items, we should have enough power to unlock the infinite gold!”  
“Collect the four thingies so we can get the treasure?” Pak reaffirmed questioningly. “This is like a video game.”  
Captain Mud cackled. “That it be, ye dynamic detonator! ‘Tis much easier to understand, now that we all be on the same page!”  
At once, Kan saw some suspicious shape following just off the starboard side of the ship. Kan faced it. It looked like the tip of some bluish-grey, squishy thing, but even the tip itself was massive.  
“Eh?” the Dry Bones glanced at Kan. “What ye be lookin’ at?” He turned his head. Sure enough, his eyes met with the mountainous tip. There was a moment of silence.   
Pak and Rok looked at each other. Rok said, “Aw, man, it’s the Titanic all over again.”  
The blue, squishy tip sank underneath the water and was now invisible to them. “Men,” Captain Mud said in a hushed tone. “Ready the cannons.”  
Kan looked around for the cannons. He saw them on either side of the ship. There seemed to be two layers: the cannons on the outside of the ship and the ones that were built into the side of the boat beneath the deck. “Uh, okay, but...”  
“Ready the cannons!” the Dry Bones shouted in a dazed panic as he rushed over to one of the cannons himself to load it. “Steady the harpoon as well! Rok!” their captain shoved a cannonball into the gun. “Y’dim-witted fool, I want ye to stay on the crow’s nest and keep an eye out for it! Be our eyes! Kan! Pak! Load the cannons! Load them! Load! Load!”  
“What are we up against?” Pak inquired. “I never saw it.”  
At once, a massive, bluish-grey aquatic creature resembling a giant squid emerged from the water. Each of its tentacles grabbed hold of the ship from every side as it faced the crew, an angry expression written on its features. It looked like a black mask was worn around its eyes, though it was merely part of its natural face. “Bloobloobloobloopy-BLOOP?” it inquired in its own native tongue, which none of the crewmembers could understand.  
“Thar she bloops!” shouted the captain.  
“Bloobloobloo-bloopy!” it shouted back in an irritated tone. The Blooper spun their entire ship around like a top in the water with the force of each tentacle. Wind blew through Kan’s coat as he grabbed a hold of the crow’s nest to keep balanced. Rok had fallen over from the sudden rapid movement and landed on his shell, which bounced him from one edge of the ship to the other at random. Pak was fine physically, his body unmoved by the Blooper, but he was screaming in absolute horror. It was like his feet were glued to the ground.  
Kan slowly sank to the ground as they spun and gripped onto the planked, wooden flooring. He crawled over to the front of the ship where a harpoon lay in waiting for him. He would be the one to take this thing down, no matter what the captain’s orders were! Even if he didn’t really have a clue what he was doing.  
Captain Mud valiantly dug his leg bones through the cracks in between the floorboard, cannon aimed as they spun around and around. The waters themselves seemed cross, angered by the constant spinning. The undead captain waited for the perfect moment. At last, the ship’s cannon had turned to face his aquatic nemesis. Captain Mud fired the cannon directly at the Blooper’s face. The cannonball bonked him on the noggin.   
The boney, dead Koopa cackled victoriously. “Yar-har-har-hack! How’d that metal feel, ye overgrown seafood dinner?”  
The Blooper’s head had been considerably bruised. “Bloobloop-BLOOP!” it insulted them and promptly sank back underneath the waters.  
Kan clung to the harpoon as he finally crawled over to it as the spinning began to calm down. “Thank heavens I didn’t need to use this...” he thought aloud.  
Rok finally stood up and shook his head. “I’m dizzy, yo; this is nuts,” he proclaimed. “Can we go to that weird island and get the egg or whatever?”  
“Aaaaaaah!” Pak hadn't realized that the crisis had been averted and continued to scream perpetually.   
“Pak!” Rok shouted, “It’s over! He’s gone!”  
The Bob-omb took in a deep breath.  
At once, the Blooper re-emerged from the waters. The creature’s tentacles stretched themselves out in straight lines like a weird fan a short ways away from the ship. They began to spin around and around in a rapid circle. “It ain’t over yet, men!” the Dry Bones shouted.  
“Aaaaaaah!” Pak resumed his panicked state of screaming, frozen in place.  
“Man yer cannons, Rok! Kan, stay there at the harpoon! Good man! And Pak, quit yer screamin’!”  
Rok looked at one of the unoccupied cannons. “Uh, uh, uh,” he ran towards it. There was a small pile of cannonballs next to the weapon. He picked one of them up and loaded it frantically. “Like this, yo?”  
Mud roared over Pak’s screaming. “Yer doin’ just fine, matey! Look alive!” A whirlpool ripped through the waters as the Blooper continued to spin ‘round and ‘round.  
Kan stayed firm at his harpoon and fearfully clutched onto it as the natural disaster called on a storm of fear in his heart. “I didn’t think that whirlpools worked like this!” Kan commented. They’d been caught in the outer edge of the whirlpool. They began to sail around in a larger circle and were slowly dragged to the center.  
Glaring at them all, the Blooper shouted, “Bloopity-bloop! Bloobloobloobloopy-BLOOP-BLOOP-bloobloop-BLOOP!”  
“Enough about yer marital status, foul beast!” their captain shouted, apparently the only one on the ship who could understand it. “Rok! Aim the cannon! Don’t fire until I give the say-so! Kan! When you see an opening, take it! We only have one shot fer this fight! And Pak!” he looked at the young Bob-omb, who had yet to stop shrieking. “Never mind! Attack, everyone else! Aim for its tentacles! They be its only means of defense!”  
Aiming carefully, the captain shot the cannon at his target. Rok observed carefully for a second and tried to follow in his leader’s footsteps. The Koopa fired his own cannon successfully, but soot and ash blasted out from his end as well. He waved his hand to be rid of the airborne residue. “Aw, man, sheeeeeesh!”  
The Blooper’s tentacles caught some of the metal projectiles in midair; others missed him completely (presumed to be shot by a blinded Koopa). The blooping menace tossed the cannonballs it could catch back at the Scurvy Scumbag—Captain Mud’s precious ship. Wood Chips and sawdust exploded out from the impacts; the cannonballs collided into the boat with one thud after another. The ship continued to sail towards the center within the catastrophe in a long, indirect spiral.  
Kan aimed the harpoon towards the floating Blooper; the waves were crashing against its smooth, blubbery body. It roared at them from its ruling location. “BLOOOOOOP!” As the waves rocked the ship and water crashed angrily against the bow, Kan fired the harpoon at the massive Blooper that had been the cause of all this madness.  
The harpoon burst from its current position like an arrow from its bow. A rope which connected the harpoon to its launcher streamed through the air behind it. The projectile struck the Blooper’s soft, squishy skull, though it didn’t penetrate its skin very deeply. “Blooblooooop...” it groaned as one of its tentacles wrapped around the long, metal projectile.  
“Fire!” shouted Captain Mud once more after he already loaded the cannonball. “Remember its tenta-grabbers!” Gunpowder blasted through the air as the cannonballs took off. Rok aimed a little more carefully and fired yet again—this time not improperly—so he wasn’t blinded by an excess of gunpowder.  
The Blooper was pelted with cannonballs, all its tentacles being struck with vicious accuracy. “BlooblooBLOOP!” It shouted in pain and sank down into the ocean once again. As it sank from the center, the whirlpool finally began to disperse. It didn’t come back up again. The Blooper had been defeated.  
Rok didn’t exactly recognize this right away. Instead, he picked up his Bob-omb friend and shoved him into the cannon. “This is our last cannonball, guys...”  
“Wait! Wait! I’m not a cannonball!” Pak cried, “This is a violation of my rights!”   
“Yar, put him down, says I!” Captain Mud barked. “That be no mere round object to put in a ball-hurling device! That be yer crewmate! Now drop!”  
Rok looked at his friend, whose legs were now flailing outside of the cannon. “Oh. Shyeah, bro, you’re right.” The Koopa removed his Bob-omb friend from the cannon. Pak gasped for breath as soon as he was released. “Sorry about that, bro-ham.”  
Pak look mortified. “I wanna go home.”  
“What was scarier?” Rok asked. “The Blooper or being put into the cannon?”  
“Yes,” Pak stated.  
Kan sighed. “We nearly lost our lives to a watery grave, and now we’re just back to this? Do you have no fear for your lives? Have you no sense of mortality?”  
“Nah,” Rok admitted. “Not really.”  
“Ahoy, me crewmates, look ahead of ye!” Captain Mud ordered. “We almost be at our destination!”   
Kan’s eyes looked in front of the ship. Some-freaking-how, it turned out that they weren’t very far from the island that held one of the four artifacts of power. Yoshi’s Island was visible. They must have been nearby before the fight with the Blooper and hadn't realized until their enemy was vanquished. “Huh,” Kan thought aloud, “that’s convenient. Seems almost like someone wanted to wrap this up all neatly with a bow.”   
“I still wanna go hoooome,” Pak whined.  
The Shy Guy looked off at the island. Its beach was in sight, rich with trees, the water lapping at the sandy shore. “I don’t think home is where we’re headed,” Kan admitted. “But I might actually know how you feel on this one.” He’d never agreed to come along in the first place.


	4. Egg-tastic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh yes, eggs. Eggs are good.

“And that’s what we’ll do!” exclaimed the Goomba chieftain to his brethren atop a large rock on the sandy beach. All of them looked like regular Goombas and Paragoombas with red headbands and bandanas. “The Koopa Tribe won’t even know what hit them! We’re gonna win the whole island and use its Yoshis as mounts!”  
All the Goombas listened to the chieftain's hairbrained scheme in disbelief. A Paragoomba piped up from the crowd of judging eyes. “Yoshis as our mounts? But how will we attract the attention of all those Yoshis?”  
“With this!” The chieftain shouted as he looked behind him towards the forest. His people's gazes all followed his own expectantly. There was a moment of silence. One of the Goombas coughed. “I said... with this!” their leader shouted again nervously. He was visibly beginning to sweat.   
Distanced grunting, accompanied by a low rustling of grass and leaves, was barely audible through the forest, as though the grunter were pushing something. Another grunt, another slide. All the Goombas waited patiently. A faraway voice shouted through the forest in between exhausted pants, “Just hang on! I—I j—just... got... a little more...” Another grunt, another slide. This continued for several long moments. The chieftain continued to hold his authoritative stance, unmoving as he waited. At last, being pushed by a lone Goomba, a massive pillar carved to look like several Goombas stacked atop each other slid past the trees with the generously-analogized speed of a trotting turtle. Atop the pillar was a single Yoshi egg resting on a square platform.  
The Goomba who pushed the pillar exhaustedly reunited with his brothers. A nearby Goomba comrade gave him a glass of water. “Here you go, Fredrick. You always push yourself too hard.”  
“Are you sure that’ll work though?” asked another Goomba in the crowd as his friend drank from the glass. He went over the plan in his little Goomba brain. “Like, we’re gonna cause an explosion to disturb the entire Koopa fortress, right? And then ride in on Yoshis and take ‘em out? And we’re gonna use this egg to lure out the Yoshis, right? But we don’t exactly have access to many explosives. I think we’d need an explosion at least twice the size of what we have to cause a big enough panic...”  
“Of course it’ll work, you dumb bum-chum!” the chieftain bellowed. “I’m the leader of you all because I’m the strongest, smartest, and bravest of us all! That means I’m the most trustworthy out of all of you pizza toppings! And as the best of the best, I could single-handedly make a humongo, massive, giant, radical explos—”  
The chieftain erupted into a humongo, massive, giant, radical puff of smoke without warning with a loud crash. The smoke engulfed the sandy area. The sounds of foreign screams followed the explosion. “Wow!” one of his people shouted. “He actually did explode!”  
Through the smoke, Captain Mud shouted angrily at Rok. “I told ye to lower the anchor, ye dull-witted bilge rat!”  
“I must have misheard you,” said Rok, scratching the back of his head.  
“‘Fire the cannons’ sounds nothin' like ‘lower the anchor’!” the captain shot back. “Are ye deaf? Are ye dumb? Were ye dropped on yer head when yer mother held ye in her tiny, worthless arms? Ye should be dancing with Jack Ketch for that tom-hackery!”  
Kan walked out of the smoke first. Some of the Goombas stared in horror at the unconscious body of their leader. Others looked like they were glaring at... Kan. Kan stepped back into the smoke. “Nope.”  
Captain Mud grabbed Kan by the scruff of his collar and dragged him across the ground. “Ye all should be ashamed of—” he made notice of the numerous unfriendly faces. The undead Koopa looked around at his foes as he assessed the situation. He noticed the pillar, and saw exactly what he was after: the Yoshi egg. “So they got our treasure, do they...?” he muttered to himself and dropped Kan by his side.  
“Thanks for that, cap,” the Shy Guy said as he looked at the horde of enemies. There was no way that he was going to make it out of this situation in one piece. The Goombas growled as they approached Kan and his crew slowly. Kan’s heart pounded in his itty-bitty chest. “Uh. Hey, guys, I don’t suppose you’d be willing to talk about your feelings instead, would you?”  
One of the Goombas threw down a glass of water that he had apparently been drinking and it smashed into pieces. “Attaaaaaack!” he cried as all his brethren charged forward on their stub legs.  
Kan and Rok stared at the approaching army. “Uh,” Rok stammered as he searched for options to get through all this. “Uh, uh, uh, uh.”  
“Get in yer shell, ye overgrown turtle!” beckoned Captain Mud. Rok immediately retreated into his green shell and peeked through its opening at the nightmare rushing towards him. Mud readied both of his curved swords. “Get ready fer the fight o' yer lives!” shouted he, swinging his blade at Rok’s hard shell. The shell was blasted off towards the horde of Goombas. It bulldozed over three of them before it ricocheted off a nearby tree at an angle.   
Kan stood in horror as a Goomba approached him. He put up his tiny little fists and shuffled them in the air. “Eh! Eh! Eh!” the Goomba was smacked by Rok’s shell, which sped harmlessly past the little Shy Guy. Kan put his hands down and patted himself down to ensure he was still alive. “Huh...”  
Rok’s shell bounced off another tree at yet another angle, striking more of the small foes, before hitting the third tree at yet a different angle. The three angles formed a perfect triangle in the trees, creating a destructive barrier with Rok’s shell.   
But the barrier wasn’t as perfect as the undead captain thought it was. Goombas approached him beyond Rok’s field of range. Captain Mud removed one of his ribs. “Have at ye then, ye lowlife scallywags!” he shouted as he threw his rib like a boomerang. One Goomba approached his left while the other tackled at him to the right, only to be struck by the rib, knocked back by the impact. The projectile launched from the right Goomba to plow into the one to the left, forcing the Goomba away with surprising power. Countless Goombas were hit by either Rok’s shell or Captain Mud’s own bone. Not one of his foes could touch him past his two layers of defense. Captain Mud folded his arms as each Goomba tried and failed to approach him and merely cackled at their foolish advances. “Yar-har-hack!”   
The Dry Bones gazed at his prize: the Yoshi egg. “Gettin’ ye should be easier ‘an I expected!” he shouted with confidence oozing from his voice. The captain ran over to one of the trees. He caught both of his swords on one of the branches; then he swung around to build enough momentum for the leap up. He hopped up from that branch, and climbed the upper one. He eyed the large pillar with the egg on its very top. “Ye shall be mine, says I!” he boldly proclaimed. Having made it to the top of the tree, he put his swords in their sheaths and valiantly jumped off the branch. He extended his hand forward. The captain’s fingertips were in reach of the egg. His torso was abruptly met with a fierce, booted kick to the ground.  
“Oof!” he groaned. Skidding on the ground as he landed, the hatted pirate glanced up with his yellow, glowing eyes at the foe who had managed to strike him.  
A black Yoshi with a red, pointy mohawk, a black leather jacket, and a spiky black choker landed in front of the devilish captain. They gazed forth at Mud with a protective determination.  
One of the Goombas was a short distance from where the Yoshi landed. He shouted, “Hey! It worked! We got one to show up!”  
The Yoshi punched the Goomba in the face and smashed him into the tree nearby. He just kind of stuck to the tree for a second. He finally fell a short moment afterward.  
Another Goomba approached Kan. The Shy Guy looked at Captain Mud’s absolute massacre of these people. He felt a bit less intimidated by the little guys. The Goomba shouted, “I’ll getcha, guy!”  
“Uh-huh,” Kan responded without enthusiasm. “Go ahead.”  
The Goomba jumped a small distance into the air and landed headfirst towards Kan. The Shy Guy merely side-stepped out of the way. Pak was walking behind him. “Hey guys, what did I miss—”  
The Goomba had bonked the Bob-omb on his head. Kan stared at Pak in horror. The Goomba landed on the ground. “Hah! How’d you like those...”  
The sound of a lit fuse quieted the menace in an instant. Pak sniffed. “Huh.” Pak sniffed again. “Hey. Is something burning?” Pak’s fuse was ablaze as an instinctual reaction to having been struck, a perk that all Bob-ombs came with.  
“RUN!” shouted the Goomba to his fellow tribesmen. “If you value your LIVES! RUN!” Each Goomba looked and saw Pak, his fuse burning ever shorter by the second. Screaming hysterically, they all began tripping over each other to get as far away as possible. One of them smacked his head into a tree by mistake. He shook his head and then kept running. The tree, however, was rattled.  
Captain Mud landed nearby after jumping back to avoid a kick from the Yoshi. Yoshi leapt forward to follow him and unleashed a flurry of punches, all of which the Dry Bones dodged. He swung his blades in retaliation. The black Yoshi dodged him blow for blow, their black leather jacket flowing through the breeze. Rok’s shell attack was still ricocheting among the trees, and bounced towards the black Yoshi. The Yoshi opened its mouth and shot its tongue around the shell. The tongue retracted, and then they spat out Rok’s shell at the Dry Bones. The shell struck the boney captain’s chest, and Rok uncontrollably plowed Mud back into the same tree the Goomba had bumped into. Rok finally got out of his shell, dazed and dizzied by the darned dilly of the prolonged spin attack. “Oof, man, I don’t feel good,” the Koopa burbled.  
Captain Mud started to rise from the tree, but he stopped when he heard the sound of a snap. “Wh—” he was interrupted by a coconut, which bonked him on the noggin after falling from its precarious position on an overhead branch. Apparently, this was a coconut tree. He fell unconscious, and his body slumped against the trunk. “Guh.”  
Pak waddled over to Rok. “Hey, Rok,” he said nonchalantly.  
“Hey, Pak,” said Rok, still a bit dazed. He shook his head a bit, then looked at Pak, who was nearly about to explode. “Pak?”  
“Yeah?”  
“You gotta little, uh, spot. Right...” Rok licked his finger, then pinched the fuse, putting out its flame. “...there.”  
“Wait... Rok, we’re friends, right?”  
“Yeah,” the Koopa said with a nod.  
“Well, be honest with me. Was I on fire?”  
“Yyyyyyyyup,” Rok responded.  
The Yoshi egg suddenly bounced, although nothing had caused it to do so. It merely hopped on its own, filled with a sudden spring of energy. Kan looked up at the egg while Rok and Pak were chatting.  
The black Yoshi’s eyes widened with concern. They shouted, filled with motherly concern. “My baby!”   
Kan stared at the Yoshi. “Wow, you’re a girl. It’s a gender reveal party.”  
“Oh!” Pak exclaimed gleefully. “That means that we can eat gender reveal cake, right? At the gender reveal party?”  
“Heckin’,” Rok agreed.  
The egg jumped merrily off the top of the massive pedestal. “No!” cried the mother, running towards the falling egg.  
Kan knew his mission: retrieve the Yoshi egg by any means possible. That’s the only reason why they were here. If this egg fell, it would be the end of everything. There was nothing a Koopa or a Bob-omb could do about this situation, for the Bob-omb had no hands, and the Koopa had no brain, but Kan... Kan was different. He was the only Shy Guy here. Now, it was time to be more than ordinary. Now... “I’m fantastic,” Kan said to himself. Kan performed the same trick that he used to gather the mysterious orb. The Shy Guy unraveled his long belt from around his coat. He whipped it towards the Yoshi’s egg, which plummeted ever faster towards the earth.  
The Shy Guy missed entirely. What a shame. No, this wasn’t about some fantastic Shy Guy who could do fantastic things. This was Kan: an ordinary Shy Guy, capable of doing only the most ordinary of things. As such, he gave only the most ordinary of reactions: “Oops.”   
Thankfully, the Yoshi caught her egg just in time. The Shy Guy pulled back his belt, whirling it around like a lasso. “Time for round two.”  
“Hey!” shouted Rok at the black Yoshi as he pointed at her affirmatively. “Mom, is that you?!”  
The Yoshi looked at Rok frustratedly. “You’re a Koopa. I’m a Yoshi. Although it’s true that some of us adopt children of other species who are in need of care, I don’t think I ever did that for you.”  
The belt wrapped around her egg as she spoke. Kan pulled the egg out of her hands and into his own. He then held the egg up high atop his palms. The Shy Guy let out a victorious cry. “Hahah!” It ended up sounding more like a laugh, but whatever.  
The egg hopped out of his palms.  
Pak watched this happen. The Bob-omb giggled quietly. “Heehee. Otters have distinctive poop from one another. That’s how you can tell what species of otter it is. Did you know that?”  
Staring at Pak in amazement, Rok shouted, “Bro, that’s awesome! I never knew that at all, yo!”  
The egg quickly hopped back over to its mother, who picked it up and held it protectively. “If you want my child, you’re going to have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.”  
“Dang,” said Rok, looking at the unconscious Captain Mud. “Then we’d all be like him.”  
“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Kan said through all of this. “Why do we need a regular old Yoshi egg to unseal a powerful, magical item that grants infinite treasure? How would that possibly help us?”  
“An omelette...” Captain Mud murmured in a pirate’s slur. He was stirring in and out of consciousness. “I wanted... me omelette...”  
Kan, Pak, and Rok all stared at their leader, who was comprised entirely of bones. “Can you even eat?” Kan asked.  
Captain Mud fell unconscious again.  
The trio all looked at each other, each of them searching for answers. None of them really knew what to do now. Rok spoke up first. “So, uh, about the egg... when he wakes up, how are we gonna explain to him...”  
“Well, as much as I like having things... Let’s not swipe it and say we did,” Kan advised. “We don’t even need it. And I don’t think that this is a fight we can just win without our captain.”  
Pak looked at the mother Yoshi. “Excuse me, ma’am, we’re sorry about trying to steal your egg. You can have him.”  
Glaring at them with the rage to end all of existence, the black, stylish Yoshi held her child close to her. “Never speak to me or my son ever again.”   
“C’mon, yo,” Rok said, “let’s skedaddley-doodle.”


	5. An Extraordinary Shy Gal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You already know what it is.

“Oh?” Captain Mud mused in his bed as Kan handed him a cup of freshly brewed tea. “So ye say that me omelette were so delicious that I fainted, and I acquired some sorta food-coma? And that’s why I couldn’t remember any o' the details?”  
“That’s right, mang,” Rok concurred. “You finally got that omelette you were after. How’d it taste? Do you remember?”  
“Sadly, no,” Mud admitted. He looked up through the bunk above him. His eyes saw things that only he understood. “But now these bones can finally rest knowin' that they got to taste sweet food of the livin’.”  
“Also,” Kan added as he pulled out a small, yellow sticky note, “I swiped this from your unconscious body. It says that our next destination is supposed to be Isle Delfino. And you’re sure that this place is actually necessary this time?”  
The undead captain looked at Kan for a moment, dumbstruck. He checked underneath his hat and found that nothing was there. He sprung up from his bed and swiped the sticky note back. “Yar! No stealin’ from yer captain, thief! You thieve from others, y’hear?” He quickly tucked the note back under his hat. “And y’got it right; that be our next destination.” Captain Mud froze for a moment as a sudden epiphany hit him hard. “Wait. But I give our directions usually. We’ve been sailin' fer... how long?”  
“About all day,” Kan stated.  
“How d’ye know where to go?!” Captain Mud cried.  
Pak entered the room. “Hi, guys, we’re almost there, and—” the Bob-omb noticed that Captain Mud had arisen from unconsciousness at last. “Oh! Captain! BOMB! You’re awake, sir! You’ll be proud to hear that, once we figured out where our destination was, I read the stars to navigate us towards Isle Delfino!”  
Captain Mud looked genuinely surprised, Kan could feel it in his bones. The skeleton uttered out, “Y’can just... do that?”  
“I know things,” Pak responded.   
The Scurvy Scumbag slowly began to come to a halt as a loud splash tore through the waters. The sound echoed through the entire boat.  
Kan, Pak, and Rok all stood motionless for a moment. Rok looked at Captain Mud. “Hey, thanks, cap, you really thought ahead of the game. You must have dropped the anchor for us.”  
“I be standin' right here,” their captain told him. “Ye blitherin’ fool.”  
“So then,” Kan began, “if you’re here, and we’re all here, then who dropped the anchor?”  
“It was Mother Nature,” Pak decided. “She works in mysterious ways.”  
The Dry Bones looked at his crew. He spoke in a hushed breath. “Keep yer movements limited and yer footsteps quiet. Follow me to the deck. We’re gonna sneak quietly. Methinks a stowaway followed us from Yoshi’s Island...”  
Captain Mud walked ahead. Rok looked at Kan. “Well, guy, we’ve survived worse. Let’s see what this shizznizzle is. I’m sure it’s just a guy who was too shy to say hi. C’mon, yo.” He quietly walked after Captain Mud, and Pak merely waddled after the both of them with soft little footsteps.  
“As a Shy Guy, I find that highly offensive,” Kan warned Rok as he followed last in line.   
They all approached the deck. They saw at last that they had arrived in some sort of boat parking area in the peaceful city and vacation home of Isle Delfino. Some called it... a dockyard. But Kan had never heard of such a silly thing. It must have been Ricco Harbor, part of Isle Delfino that welcomed ships. They’d been parked rather carefully. Atop the bowsprit of the ship was a purple rabbit wearing a bib. The rabbit carried a large sack over his shoulder. He turned around from the bowsprit to gaze at the four pirates. “Oh.”  
“Mom!” Rok shouted. “Is that you?”  
“No,” said the rabbit, “I’m Nabbit. I heard you talking about your next destination yesterday. I also heard that Isle Delfino has a Shine Sprite. I’m here to nab it.”  
Kan looked at Rok, then back to Nabbit. “How can that guy be your mother? He’s a dude and everything.”  
“Male seahorses believe that masculinity is about the miracle of giving birth,” Pak stated. “It’s entirely possible that he’s part seahorse.”  
“Nope,” Nabbit countered. “I’m full Nabbit. And now I’m gone.”  
Rok looked at Nabbit. “No you’re not—”  
Nabbit jumped off the bowsprit and landed on the concrete path on the city street. He quickly ran past a corner and darted in between the buildings.   
“Well,” said the Koopa, “at least we don’t have to worry about him anymore. He is no longer a problem.”  
“Of course he is, ye pinheaded nimwit!” Captain Mud shouted at his empty-minded subordinate. “He’s goin' after our Shine Sprite! We have to steal it 'fore he does!”  
Rok looked at his captain with a face filled with offense and disbelief. “Who you callin’ pinhead?”  
The captain quickly jumped off of the bowsprit and landed near the same location that Nabbit had. He looked around the city. The ground beneath them was concrete. He looked ahead. There were short buildings all over and pleasant, empty roads in between them. The sun was shining overhead. Overall, it seemed like a nice place to steal something from. That’s what Kan thought anyway. “Alright,” Mud began, “thar be a bank somewhere ‘round these here quarters. As far as I know, it be containin’ a Shine Sprite.”  
“So,” Kan began, “you’re telling me that we have to perform a bank heist? No big deal. Not like I haven’t stolen from any huge places before.”  
“You’ve stolen something from a bank?” Pak asked in awe.  
“No,” Kan answered, “it was a museum, which is even better if you ask me.”  
“Not as cool,” Rok denied with a wave of his hand. “It has to be stealing from a bank, or it’s not valid.”  
“Quickly, lads! Follow me!” Mud beckoned as he ran down a large city path in between two long rows of buildings.  
Kan and Pak looked at each other. The Shy Guy shrugged and followed suit. Kan scurried off the ship by jumping from its tip. His tiny blue boots carried him at maximum Shy Guy speed through the city. Unfortunately, that wasn’t quite fast. Rok and Pak followed swiftly. He could see the Dry Bones only for a few moments, before he quickly darted around another corner. It seemed like the captain was taking them closer to Delfino Plaza: the capital of this island. That made sense. There must have been a bank in the capital.   
Kan rushed over to the plaza, his two comrades following closely behind him. The trio saw their captain stopped at one of the buildings’ corners. Mud peeked over its edge. Kan skidded to a halt behind Captain Mud. “Sir, we made it!” the Shy Guy said enthusiastically.  
“Keep it down...” the Dry Bones whispered. “Thar she be: the bank. Surely, thar’s got to be a Shine Sprite in there...”  
“Who’s Shirley?” Rok asked.  
Pak stared at the large bank. Two Toads wearing sunglasses were standing on either side of the door to its entrance. It was a larger, horizontally rectangular building which stood tall and proud. It had a decorative Shine Sprite at the top of the building which had been painted on by the local artists.  
“Yo, check it out, they have it,” said Rok, gazing at the painting. “It’s so huge.”  
“'Tis a fake,” their captain said dryly. “Our target be inside the building, y’hear?”  
Pak carefully scrutinized the building. “Man, it’s guarded. How are we going to sneak past them?”  
“We could always take them down by force,” Kan thought aloud thoughtfully; his thinking voice was low with thought. “But then what? We would be alerting more of those goons, wouldn’t we? We’d just have a whole horde of them on our tails, and we’d be busted for sure.”  
“If only you had someone who could help you,” came an unfamiliar woman’s voice from behind them.  
Kan was the only one out of the four of them who actually turned around to look at the mysterious newcomer. Wearing a Shy Guy mask with eyelashes designed on either of the eyes, she stood on her short, brown boots quietly behind the group. The mysterious stranger was much taller than Kan and bore a humanoid figure. From the boots came longer white socks which extended across the rest of her legs. They were belted to her long hood, which she wore like a skirt. The actual red hood over her head was much longer than Kan’s, and it flowed down elegantly a ways. The hood sheltered elegant, short, green hair. She had a belt wrapped around her hood just like Kan, and another around her collarbone. She was a Shy Gal.  
Staring at her, Kan shook Rok. “Rok. Rok. Rok. Look.”  
“Can’t, yo,” Rok stated. “I’m busy staring at those funny-lookin’ Toads. Their hats are stupid.”  
“Rok,” Kan repeated. “There’s someone else behind us.”  
Pak responded for his Koopa friend. “I think we would have heard by now. Nobody can miss that kinda thing.”   
“Yeah,” the Shy Gal said. “We totally would have heard. Nobody else is behind us.”  
“Eh?” Captain Mud stirred, finally hearing her voice. “Whozzat?” He turned around to see the Shy Gal behind him and his men. He quickly unsheathed one of his curved blades and pointed it at her. “Sweet coral’s reef, lass! When did ye get here?!”   
“Not too long ago,” responded the Shy Gal, putting one of her sleeved hands over her mouth as she thought aloud. “When did I get here? I dunno. Just saw y’all running somewhere in a hurry. Turned out it was to the bank... which really caught my interest, you know?”  
Rok turned around. “Hey, Kan, they’re probably looking at memes on their phones. Aren’t those Toads just—” he saw the Shy Gal. “—totally awesome-lookin’ and stuff? Wow, uh, zoinks. It’s a new lady.”  
“Why did an innocent stroll to the bank catch your attention?” Kan asked. “We didn’t have any plans involved with the bank. Just wanted to withdraw some perfectly legitimate, hard-earned money—that we made at our perfectly legitimate, hard-working jobs—from our own accounts, legally. You know, the ones belonging to us? That’s all. We were trying to pay rent. We live together. We’re partners. Isn’t that right?”  
“No,” Pak said. “We’re trying to rob it.”  
Kan stared at Pak, his eyes entirely devoid of all hope or faith in Bob-ombs.  
“Oh,” the Shy Gal began, “so that’s your aim, is it? You want to rob this bank? With your tiny, stubby, little hands? And then waddle out of there, right? That’s your plan? That’s what you’re telling me?” She folded her arms and glanced away from the group with sass potent in her stance. “You know, I could just tell the authorities about you. You all do know that, right? In fact, you could very well consider yourselves nothing but bones in the not-so-near future.”  
“Hey, now!” shouted Captain Mud. “I find that offensive!”  
“Point is, you’d be rotting in jail,” the Shy Gal continued. “Unless... you did something for me.”  
Kan fell to his knees. “Shy Goddess, what is it you request? We mortals are not worthy of your mere presence.”  
“I want in,” the Shy Gal said. “Truth be told, I’ve been trying to rob this whole bank myself for quite a while now. The only problem is that I never really had a team to work with, so I never could make an attempt. But I see some conspicuous skeleton pirate, a Shy Guy, a Koopa and a Bob-omb come running over to a bank, and my brain started making some... ideas. Creative ideas. Creative ideas that involve a heist.”  
Captain Mud looked at the Shy Gal through her black-eyed mask. “Alright, ye clever rapscallion, so ye say that ye won’t turn us over to the authorities if we let ye in on our little scheme, and in turn ye help us rob this here bank? Then we all get away scot-free, and that be the end? And we’re supposed to just trust ye outta nowhere like this?”  
“What, exactly, did you intend to do once you got past the guards?” the Shy Gal asked. “What would you have done about the security cameras? How would you have opened the electronic safe? Could you have cracked the code? And what about the other guards who protect the Shine Sprite? What did you intend to do? Fight them all off, or run away? Either way, the odds would not be in your favor. But, what if I told you that I had ways to deal with all of that?”  
Rok thought for a while about this. “Yo... you could just do all that? Pak,” said he, turning to his Bob-omb friend, “ain’t she just cool?”  
“What?” Pak asked. “Sorry, I spaced out there for a second.”  
“I feel like that happens a lot,” Kan said under his breath.  
“So,” Captain Mud interjected, “y’mean to tell us that ye could take care of all that? The security cameras? The safe? The guards? Alluvit?”  
The Shy Gal examined her nails through one of her sleeved hands and pretended to be able to see each one individually. “Oh, yes. I could. Oh, but if only there was some kind of compensation for me.”  
“Well,” Pak began, “we’re actually on a quest to get these four powerful artifacts to unlock a secret treasure that contains unlimited gold. It was sealed away by powerful wizards and stuff, fearing its potential. So now we’re on a quest to get four thingies to unlock it.”  
The Shy Gal froze for a moment and stood in silence. She regained her composure. “I’ll introduce myself proper, then. My name’s Tir. That’s because I’m top-tier. Also because I leave all of my enemies in tears after I destroy everything they love. And who are you kind gentlemen?”  
“I’m Kan,” said the Shy Guy. “The Dry Bones is our leader, Captain Mud. The Bob-omb over there is Pak—he spaces out quite a bit, don’t mind him. And the Koopa is my friend, Rok.”   
Glaring at Tir, the pirate captain sheathed his sword slowly. “I suppose it don’t matter how many times ye divide infinity. Basic maths... But ye better not try any funny business.”  
“C’mon, now,” Tir began, “you said that you were after some legendary artifact. If you’re after that, you’ll need the best thieves you can get. And I’m sure you’ve just loved having the mission in these fellows’ capable hands, haven’t you?”  
Kan looked at his stub hands in front of him. Rok farted, then sniffed. Pak simply stood motionless before saying, “I don’t have any hands.”  
Captain Mud examined his crew for a moment before letting out a sigh. He turned back to Tir. “Alright, welcome aboard, lass. Now, how would ye, exactly, go about executin’ the infiltration? What be yer techniques?”  
The Shy Gal began to approach the two Toads with sunglasses, one of whom continued to stare at his phone, presumably browsing social media. “I’ll show you,” Tir said confidently. “I will need you to follow me, though. As I said, I won’t be able to do this on my own.”  
“I hear the goddess and obey,” said Kan as he followed behind Tir. “Let’s do as she says.”  
“Sure, yo, sounds rad,” Rok stated with a carefree trot in Tir’s path.  
“Uh, I guess I’m gonna follow Tir now,” Pak added. “Go with the flow, the old saying goes,” said Pak, going with the flow as the old saying goes.  
“Yar...” said Mud, lamenting his status of command. “I should be callin’ the shots...” he gazed at Tir with eyes filled with suspicion and uncertainty. With great reluctance, the undead Koopa followed behind the wise newcomer.  
Tir approached one of the Toads. “Excuse me,” she began, “is this the bank?”  
“Oh,” said the Toad who wasn’t scrolling through social media, “yeah, it is. Why? Are you lookin’ for some bank-related activities? Because the bank is where you go for that. The bank has money in it.”  
“And water is wet,” said the other Toad as he continued to scroll through his phone. “Your I.Q. is, like, five.”  
“Can we take this inside?” Tir asked. “It’s awful hot out here.”  
“Oh, of course!” the friendly Toad said. He walked inside with his media-absorbed friend following behind him. They closed the door most of the way shut and left it only just a crack open. Kan peeked in through the crack to observe the surroundings. There was a large room which was mostly empty. Ahead of him was the front desk where one would consult the receptionist. Tir and the guards were walking down a hallway to the left of that.  
Kan opened the door and followed behind Tir. Rok and Pak looked at each other for a moment before coming to a silent, mutual agreement to follow as well. Mud begrudgingly came along.  
Kan looked at where Tir had gone. She went down a hallway with the restroom near it. The hall led to another path down to the right. Where they were now seemed to be pretty far down, certainly far enough to be unnoticed by the people behind the front desk. Trying to act normal, the little Shy Guy decided to follow after Tir. Pak looked like he was entranced by the new environment, his eyes wandering around as he followed behind Kan. Rok simply whistled a carefree tune. Mud pitied his crew's desperate attempts at normality and kept quiet.  
The Toad without his phone simply cleared his throat before turning back to Tir. “So, what can I do for you, young la—” Tir pulled a taser from her pocket and jammed the electric weapon in the Toad’s gut. Almost immediately afterwards, the Toad fell unconscious.  
Dropping his phone, the other Toad took a step back in retaliation and shock. “Wh—” He was roundhouse kicked in the face, and slowly tipped over before he made an impact with the ground. He didn’t get up.   
Tir ruthlessly kicked each body into the boy’s restroom and hid them from sight. She stroked the bangs of her green hair. “Steal their clothes and name-tags,” she ordered. “They’re your disguises. Make this snappy. We’ll steal that Shine Sprite before they wake up.”  
Kan stared at the brutal display of violence that had just burst from this Shy Gal. “H-How, uh, how long will that be?” he stammered.  
“Shouldn’t be for a while,” Tir stated factually. “Whoever wants to play dress up, go. I’m glad y’all decided to follow me like you did. I must say, you provided an excellent body-wall. Nobody saw a thing.”  
“Oh, uh, aye,” Mud sputtered out. “All a part o' me master plan, y’see. I knew this all along. I ordered them to follow ye.”  
“Mhm,” Tir hummed disbelievingly. “My faith in your competence is unwavering. Now, for those interested, go do. Shoo.”  
Kan groaned. He had no choice. This was all part of their quest. He walked over to the restroom. Rok followed suit. Unfazed by everything, he was still whistling that carefree tune.   
Pak looked at Tir. “Did you know that the universe started from an infinitely powerful explosion, and now it’s infinitely expanding?”  
“Mhm,” Tir said again as she returned the tiny Bob-omb’s gaze. “I’m sure everyone knows about the beginning of the universe by now.”  
“I love the fact that all creation began with an explosion,” said the Bob-omb, beaming happily.  
“Aren’t you just the darlin’est thing?” cooed the Shy Gal.  
“He be impressive, say I,” the captain added. “He navigated us here usin’ naught but his wits and the stars.”  
“Oh, what a cute little livin’ GPS you are,” said Tir, picking up Pak and looking at his milky white eyes. “I could just eat you up. Except I shouldn’t, otherwise I’d explode.”  
The three waited for Kan and Rok to emerge from the stalls. After a few moments passed, the disguised members of the group emerged in the security guards’ outfits. Since the two uniforms were worn by Toads before, they seemed to fit the pirates rather well.  
Rok looked at Pak in Tir’s arms. “Bro...”  
“This isn’t what it looks like,” Pak said.  
“I’ve seen enough, bro...”  
“Anyways,” Kan interrupted the bromantic affair, “where do we go from here?”  
Tir dropped Pak without a care for his safety. He landed harmlessly on his small, orange feet. “Now,” said the Shy Gal, “this is the part where I, dare I say it, put my trust in you. You have to go to the treasury down this here hallway to the right. This is where you use your IDs to get in while we stay behind. I’ll disable the cameras for you and keep other approaching guards busy, if they show up. Take care, sweet pea.”  
Kan stared down the hallway to the right. There was a large, metal door at the end of it with some sort of electric pad next to the threshold. Rok casually walked down the hallway towards the door as he continued to whistle that same tune. “Don’t you feel, like, worried about this situation at all?” Kan asked before following his Koopa friend.  
“Nah, man,” said Rok as he shoved either of his hands in the pockets of his uniform. “It’s just another day. Met some new dude who tells me how to live my life, and I just go with the flow. That isn’t any kinda different from how I reacted with Captain Mud. The man just showed up, started giving us orders, and I just did it, guy. Some girl comes along and steals my homie, then drops him seconds after, and that’s just the way.”  
“Wow,” said Kan, putting a hand over his mouth. “That’s kinda deep for you. I’m impressed.”  
“Life’s only as deep as you look,” Rok replied as they approached the door. He examined the number pad next to it carefully. There seemed to be a card slot next to an arsenal of buttons. “Aw, duuude... it’s a bust. We gotta figure out the password.”  
“Hello, valued visitor!” came the distant voice of a Toad. “How can I be of service to you?”  
Tir glanced their way from the side. She discreetly mimed swiping a card through a slot. Kan and Rok both stared at her unknowingly. She rolled her eyes, then met the Toad with a smile. “Aw, it’s nice of you to notice me. I was actually wondering if you could show me around. I’m new to this part of the island. Why don’t we start with that part of the bank over there?” asked the gal, pointing away from Kan and Rok.   
“Of course!” the Toad said. “Right this way!”  
Pak began to follow Tir, but Captain Mud held him back. “We gotta watch our crewmates' backs,” he said under his breath. “Thar be no way they could make it outta here alive if they be caught.”  
“Aw man,” Pak whined. “I wanted to stay with the friendly new person.”  
Captain Mud merely continued to stare disapprovingly at Tir as she walked off with the Toad.  
Kan stared at the pad. “So, we just...” the Shy Guy felt around the inner sides of his pockets. Something paper-thin and hard was in there. He pulled it out. It was the security guard Toad’s ID. It looked like it had been fried by the taser. “Well, well, well... it looks like our friend ruined our only chance of getting in there.”  
Rok grabbed the burnt ID off Kan’s grippy stubs, and he swiped it through the card slot. A green light shone above the keypad, and the large, metal door slowly creaked open. “Shyeah, dude, it’s over. No way we’ll get in now...”  
“Wait,” Kan started as he curiously eyed the doorside keypad, “what about the password?”  
“Maybe it was 'No way we'll get in now,'” Rok guessed.   
Kan swiped his card back and shoved it in his pocket. “C’mon, let’s go inside.”  
“Sure thing, guy,” said the Koopa as he led the way.  
Inside was a small, metal room with two doors on either side with the same sort of locking systems. In the center was a Shine Sprite levitating proudly above a small pedestal. “Wrow,” the Shy Guy uttered. “It’s here. It’s really here. The Shine Sprite...”  
“Of course it is!” came the shrill voice of another Toad. Kan looked behind him and saw the very Toad, admiring its beauty. “It’s just the most enchanting thing on the whole island!”  
Kan and Rok exchanged worried glances. “Uh,” Rok began, “yeah, it’s, like, gorgeous and stuff. Radiant.”  
“I haven’t seen your faces around here before!” the Toad observed. “You must be new recruits! What’s your names?”  
The Shy Guy was sweating nervously behind his mask. He looked down at his burnt card and tried desperately to sound out the name. “Jjjjeeeerrrryyyyy... Jerry.”  
“And I’m a loony,” added Rok, not truly knowing what else to say.  
“Well, hey there Alooney and Jerry! Nice to have you aboard! Isle Delfino would certainly appreciate the help towards restoring its glory after the great litter instance all those years ago!”   
“Make Isle Delfino Great Again, Right?” Kan stated as he humbly put a hand on his chest. Suddenly, a purple blur whisked past the three of them. The Shy Guy, Koopa, and Toad all looked around in uncertainty. “Uh, did you guys see that just now?”  
Another purple blur scuttled along with the sound of tiny, rapid footsteps just barely audible before they vanished again. “Him...” the Toad said solemnly. “By the Super Stars, he’s here...”  
They heard laughter. More rustling echoed throughout the central room. Rok and Kan stood back to back, while the Toad stood adjacent to them. Each of them looked around for the source of the mocking laughter. Suddenly, Nabbit jumped from seemingly nowhere onto the pedestal with the Shine Sprite with his trusty bag on his shoulder. The thieving bunny quickly bagged the the glowing jewel. “Hi, guys,” said Nabbit. “Thanks for helping me nab it. Couldn’t have done it withoutcha.”  
The Toad whipped out his walkie-talkie and shrieked in his annoying, Toady voice, “REQUESTING BACKUP!”  
“All your Sprites are belong to me,” Nabbit added before he merrily hopped off the pedestal. The dastardly thief sprinted through the crowd of three.


	6. Dag-Nabbit!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new thief is here!

Rok simply stared after Nabbit, who’d taken off with their Shine Sprite. “Yo, that’s wack...”  
Kan slapped Rok across the face and grabbed him by the collar of his uniform. “Don’t just stand there, you buffoon! That thief stole our bank’s most prized possession!”  
“Wait, but...” Rok slowly began to pick up on Kan’s act. “Y-Yeah! Oh yeah, right! Shyeah, brah, that mad rabbit totally snagged the Shine Sprite! Come on, fellow bank guard!” he said to the Toad. “We have a thief to put to a most righteous justice!”  
“Follow me!” the Toad shouted as he sprinted from the room after the purple nabber. Kan and Rok followed closely behind. They crossed down the hallway, took a sharp left, and met with Pak and Captain Mud not too long afterwards.  
“Eh?” Mud inquisitively looked at his men. “Where be the Spr—”  
“Nabbit nabbed it!” Kan explained quickly as he rushed past them.  
Tir had been talking to three Toads and a Pianta in uniforms when they arrived. The Shy Gal seemed to have caught wind of Kan's dangerous situation. She made one last quick, inaudible remark to them from a distance before rejoining with the group. “Excuse me, did I just hear that Nabbit, the world’s most troublesome thief, stole our Shine Sprite? How did he even get here?”  
“Well,” Pak began with a bit of hesitation in his voice, “we may have let him... stow away onboard? By accident? And stuff?”  
Tir spoke in a hushed rage. “You let him sneak onto your ship?”   
“Shyeah, uh...” Rok scratched the back of his head.  
“Maybe we should hire some security guards...” Mud mused as he glanced over Kan's and Rok's disguises.   
Kan was looking around frantically. “Where’d that pest go? Didn’t he run down the hallway? Did he leave the building or...”  
Nabbit fell from the ceiling in front of the bank’s front door, which was the same place from which Kan’s group of thieves had entered. The purple rabbit had a bag over one shoulder and used his other hand to wave at them. “Sayonara, mi amigos.” Nabbit bolted out the door in a flash.  
“Did he just speak Japanese and Spanish in the same sentence?” Pak wondered.  
“After him!” Captain Mud shouted as he began to run after the rabbit. “He’s got the treasure!”  
“Send in the reinforcements!” shouted the Toad as he chased after him quickly.  
Tir took off as well. “Get back here, you meddlesome thief!"  
Kan followed on his tiny little Shy Guy legs. Rok picked up Pak and ran as fast as he could go. Pak seemed to be enjoying the ride. “Wheeee,” he cheered happily.  
Police cars screeched to a halt in front of Nabbit as he bolted across the concrete pavement. “Freeze!” shouted a Pianta. “You’re under arrest!”  
“And you’re underdressed,” said Nabbit, zooming passed the Pianta.  
“What do you—” The Pianta’s pants fell down. He shrieked like a little girl as he pulled his pants up.  
A young Pianta was riding her pink, glittery bike on the sidewalk as Nabbit rapidly approached. Captain Mud threw his bone at the thief like a boomerang. Nabbit ducked under the bone as he sprinted. In turn, the bone mistakenly struck the little girl and knocked her off her bike. The bone spiraled back towards the scowling Captain Mud. The purple fiend hopped on the pink, glittery bike and chimed the bell. “Ring-ring, motherlover.” Nabbit peddled away as fast as he could while the child merely cried on the sidewalk.  
Kan looked at the police car that had stopped in a feeble attempt to stall Nabbit. He remembered the clothes he was wearing. “Rok, c’mon! I have an idea.” The uniformed Shy Guy darted over to the police car.  
The policeman Pianta looked at Kan with curiosity as he pulled up his britches. “Eh? Who you thinks youse is, wise guy?”  
Rok and the others had caught up with Kan and the officer. Tir looked at Kan with uncertainty, unaware of his master plan.  
Kan presented his burnt, unrecognizable ID. “My name is Agent Jerry. I’m part of the force. You can trust me, sir. This is official Isle Delfino business. Let’s capture that crook.”  
“Jerry!” the Pianta exclaimed as his body began to tremble. He held onto his pants with one hand and saluted with the other. “O-Oh! Sure! Of course! Ya look exactly like ya do in the pictcha, boss! Ya look so handsome in that pictcha, really! Take whuddeva you needs, Jerry!”  
“Excellent, me and the detectives will get on the case. Come along, everyone!” Kan beckoned as he assumed the driver’s seat.  
Tir watched in amazement as Rok and Pak both claimed shotgun. Captain Mud proudly took one of the backseats as he shot a smug look at Tir. The Shy Gal was amazed that Kan’s plan had actually worked. Shaking her head, Tir stepped into the seat next to Mud.  
Kan pressed his foot on the gas, and the tires roared before the vehicle swerved into the middle of the road.  
“Safety first,” Rok muttered to himself as he pulled his seatbelt over Pak and him. The belt snapped like a rubber band as Rok tried to force it around his round friend, but the Koopa just shrugged.   
Nabbit was still riding his pink, sparkly bike. Sirens began to blare behind him. He peddled faster. Somehow, he was managing to keep a fair distance. Defying everything, he still believed he was faster than them. It almost seemed like he was, even though they were somehow gaining on him against all odds.  
“Wooow,” Pak said in hushed amazement, “you’re doing a great job, Kan.”  
Kan was too short to see past the steering wheel. “Did you say take a left?” he inquired. “Because I heard take a left.”  
“No!” Tir shouted. “No-no-no! No-no! No!”  
Kan swerved slightly to the left and knocked over a fire hydrant with his vehicle. From the exposed plumbing underneath, water sprang upwards underneath the car. The broken hydrant propelled the car into the air, and landed right behind the desperately peddling Nabbit. Nabbit was sweating, more from fear than exhaustion. This thief never tired.  
“We got the scallywag now!” Captain Mud enthused.  
“Nice plan, yo!” Rok shouted.  
Swerving the police car to the right and left at random, Kan shouted in a panic, “I have no idea what I’m doing!”  
Tir clung to the handle above the window for dear life as her heart pounded out of her chest. “Someone be his stool so the man can see!” she shrieked.  
Nabbit saw the car was gaining on him and swerving around in an absolute panic. “This looks like a slippery slope...” He smirked behind his bib and held up a banana peel.   
Rok looked at his Bob-omb friend, who sat contentedly in his lap. “Wanna do it?”  
“Yeah!” Pak enthused.  
Rok simply tossed Pak in Kan’s general direction.  
Nabbit dropped the banana peel.  
Pak was thrown onto Kan’s face. “I’m a stool!” he shouted proudly. Kan’s hands slipped across the steering wheel as he fell over and smacked against his door, now too dazed to continue driving.  
They’d just crossed the city and found themselves near Ricco Harbor.  
They just barely dodged the banana peel, but now were hopelessly crashing towards the ocean.  
Captain Mud shouted. “Yar! Someone else take the helm!”  
“I don’t have any haaaaands!” Pak screamed in despair as the vehicle skidded into the waters.  
Tir wouldn’t let Nabbit get away. “You might not have any hands,” she began, “but...” Reaching over the driver’s seat, the Shy Gal grabbed Pak. “Open the window!” she commanded. However, this was not a window which relied on a button. No! This was a window with a crank mechanism. Rok grabbed the crank and winded it as fast as he could.  
The window slowly eased down as the car sped wildly out of control. Ducking her head underneath the roof of the vehicle, Tir stepped uncomfortably through the car in front of Rok. “Not enough space!” she shouted. Her foot met the door of the speeding car, knocking it wide open. Rok clung to the seat in confused panic.  
“Unrad, man! Unrad!”  
Tir smacked Pak. Rok and Captain Mud stared at her in complete terror. Pak’s fuse had been lit.  
“We’ll all be goin’ up in smoke, mateys!” shrieked Captain Mud, overcome with anxiety.  
Kan regained consciousness. Still unable to see, he turned the wheel away from the waters by happenstance, but the vehicle did not follow the command. It skidded for a moment before tumbling around in circles.  
Tir jumped out of the vehicle with Pak in hand. The Shy Gal threw the Bob-omb at Nabbit, who was rapidly approaching the Scurvy Scumbag with the bag on his shoulder. Still peddling on the pretty pink bike, he turned to see an incoming, screaming Pak.  
“Aaaaaaah!”  
“Aaaaaaaaah!” Nabbit screamed back as he peddled as fast as he could.  
However, it was not fast enough. Pak crashed into Nabbit and detonated into a small explosion. A puff of smoke engulfed them. Tir landed close by their collision.  
The car landed miraculously on its wheels again, but the open door next to Rok had fallen off. Captain Mud’s yellow pupils were spinning around in opposite circles. Panting, covered in sweat and engulfed in fear, Kan clung to the seat. “I’m.... I’m alive,” he said in awe of his own well-being.  
Tir walked over to Nabbit once the smoke cleared. Pak and the pesky thief had been rendered immobile, but not unconscious. Nabbit groaned, “Oww...” Pak merely continue to lay there on the ground and stared plainly into the skies. He seemed completely fine yet, somehow, off. He didn’t seem as important to Tir as Nabbit did though.  
“I would spit on you if I weren’t wearing this mask,” Tir stated to Nabbit as she swiped his bag. The Shy Gal searched around in it for a few moments before presumably grabbing the Shine Sprite.  
Kan heard sirens of following police cars. He turned around. Two of them were coming their way. “This is the first and last time I’m going to say this,” the Shy Guy remarked, “but thank goodness for the police.”  
“What are ye sayin’, ye half-witted buffoon?” Captain Mud spat. “Let’s grab the Sprite and sail out o’ here before the police—”  
Tir began walking towards the car, Shine Sprite and empty bag in hand. The Shy Gal opened Kan’s door and threw the bag in the backseat with Captain Mud, who barely made enough room for it as it landed. Forcing the magical item into Kan’s arms, Tir said, “Give them this.”  
Rok looked at Tir. “But, like, dude... after everything we went through...”  
“Trust me on this. I know what I’m doing,” Tir stated.  
Kan stared at the Shine Sprite in confusion. His heart was still pounding. He took in a deep breath. He released the air. The Shy Guy took the Shine Sprite with determination in his black eyes. “I’ll do it. I trust you, Tir.”  
“Yeah, uh-huh, that’s sweet,” Tir passively stated in a most uninterested tone.  
Rok got out of the car and began to make his way to his disoriented friend. “I’m gonna make sure that Pak’s doin’ alright,” he told the group. “Exploding takes a lot out of him.”  
“Really? I didn’t know that...” Kan said sarcastically.  
The police cars came to a halt; their lights were still flashing. Three Toads wearing policemen’s garb, accompanied by another Pianta with matching attire, emerged from the vehicle. The three Toads approached the five thieves, while the Pianta approached Nabbit with cuffs in hand. The Pianta grabbed Nabbit by his ears and said, “Youse comin’ with me, bub! Now get into da car unless you da type what wants to cause more trouble!”  
Nabbit groaned as the cuffs were slapped onto his arms. He was carried to the police car.  
Holding the Shine Sprite in both of his itty-bitty hands, Kan emerged from the vehicle. He and the three Toads approached each other on each of their respective, stubby legs. The leftmost Toad spoke as they arrived. “We saw what that guy did to two of our men.”  
The middle Toad put his hand on his chest solemnly while the other took off his hat in respect. “We found them unclothed and badly beaten in the bathroom,” the centermost Toad finished.  
“We couldn’t have done it without you,” said the Toad to the right.  
Kan presented the Shine Sprite proudly to the Toads. “Here you go, gentlemen. It’s all in a day’s work for...”  
“That’s right, Jerry,” said the leftmost Toad with a smile crawling across his face as he cautiously grabbed the magical item. “You’ve done it again. It’s no wonder why you’re the one who calls the shots around here. You’re a local hero now!”  
Kan paused for a moment. A friendly suggestion rang in his head upon hearing that word. “Be your own hero!”  
Kan felt a happy, tingly feeling inside his stomach. “I think I really am my own hero...” he muttered quietly to himself.  
Tir patted Kan as Rok approached with a dazed Bob-omb in hand.   
“We think there may have been a conflict, or maybe some kind of confusion in Nabbit’s plan though,” said the Toad to the right. “One of those two men also called himself Jerry in an attempt to drag your good name through the mud. We have reason to believe that one was a spy. He must have been hired and then discarded by Nabbit in his heist. It had to have gone something like that, anyway...”  
“What?” Kan gasped in shock. “Impersonating someone else? What a monster...”  
“Right!” said the centermost Toad. “Only a monster would do something like that. Good thing you put a stop to them, Jerry!”  
Being called a monster popped Kan’s bubble a little bit.  
“Anyways,” the centermost Toad continued, “we’ll be taking this Shine Sprite back to its rightful place in the bank. We’ll probably see you tomorrow, Jerry!”  
“See you then!” replied Kan, knowing full well he would never see these Toads again. They walked away with the Shine Sprite and entered their car with an imprisoned Nabbit and a cross Pianta. They drove off in a moment.  
“Welp,” Rok began, “there goes everything we worked for.”  
“Check the bag,” Tir said to the undead captain.  
Captain Mud glanced between the Shy Gal and the bag. He opened the bag and explored its insides. “By the Seven Seas...” he muttered in awe.  
“Yo, wait,” said Rok, “you mean...”  
“French fries—aren’t boiled.” Pak said in a haze.  
Captain Mud reached into the bag and pulled out the Shine Sprite they had come all this way to retrieve. Tir said proudly, “The one that we gave to the police is a replica that I’d been saving for this very mission. Like I said, I’ve been trying to rob this place for a while now before y’all showed up.”  
“We got the Shine Sprite!” Kan enthused. “And we lived! We’re actually alive!”  
“A Life—that’s good cereal,” Pak stated again in confusion.  
Rok patted his dazed friend. “It’s okay, bro. You just need some time to recharge.”  
Kan stared at his burnt out friend. Is this the reason he’s so dumb? the Shy Guy thought to himself. How often to Bob-ombs explode?  
Captain Mud began to chuckle to himself as he grinned at the Shine Sprite. The chuckling soon exploded with energy. A maniacal, pirate’s laugh roared from the Dry Bones. “Yarharharhar-hack! We’ve done it! Now let’s take our booty and load it upon the ship! We only need two more items, say I! Then the legendary treasure be ours!”  
Shoving the Shine Sprite back into its container, Captain Mud walked out of the car. He approached the Scurvy Scumbag and tossed the bag high towards it. The bag landed firmly on the deck.  
Captain Mud turned back to his crew, including the one new Shy Gal. “Alright now, mateys! Let’s climb aboard, and—”  
The ship began to sail away without them. Kan, Rok, and Tir looked on in confusion and worry. “What?” Mud asked. “Be there something on me face?” He turned around and saw what they did. “Chompin’ Cheep-Cheeps!” exclaimed the pirate. “She’s sailin’ off without us!”  
Hanging from the shrouds of the ship was a black Shy Guy, but his mask bore the features of a frowning face, rather than one with a neutral expression. Attached to his back was a Bill Blaster. He gave them a salute as the Scurvy Scumbag made way for the seas.


	7. Command-a-Guy

A Pianta rode his speed boat across the harbor as a large, old-looking ship set sail. His girlfriend was riding on a pair of skis as she graced across the waves. “You doin’ great, baby cakes!” shouted the boyfriend. “Be careful not to smack into the boat by mistake!”  
“Reggie,” his girlfriend shouted, “I think you should get closer to the shore! Let’s give that thing space! I don’t want to be in its way while it takes off!”  
Following the commands from his orderly partner, Reggie begrudgingly steered his boat towards land. As the Pianta rode along the waters, he spotted an odd group of five: A Shy Guy, a Shy Gal, a Dry Bones, a Koopa, and a Bob-omb. They stared off at the ship with dumbfounded expressions. “Ayo,” Reggie commented, “what gives? What’s these guys’ issue, dollface?”  
“They’re probably saying goodbye to one of their long-lost lovers!” suggested the female Pianta as she shouted over the motor and rushing wind. “And you can call me things other than pet-names, dollface!”  
The Shy Gal grabbed the Shy Guy’s belt from around his hoodie, and began to lasso it around in a circle. “Ay!” Reggie bellowed. “What’s she doin’!”  
Tir whipped the makeshift lasso towards the male Pianta and snatched him off the boat. With a cry of panic, he fell off the boat and was lost underneath the waves. “Reggie!” the female Pianta cried. She lost her balance and tumbled into the waters. Their aquatic vehicle slowly lost momentum as it eased in front of the bold Shy Gal.  
Tir hopped onto the speedboat. The skis were still attached. “Get on,” she ordered curtly.  
“Dang,” Rok said in amazement. “You just totaled their ride.”  
“Can I have my belt back?” Kan asked. He felt a little shy without it. He was just that kind of guy. He was a shy guy, if you will.  
Tir tossed the belt onto Pak, who wasn’t quite in his right mind from his previous explosion. Pak stared at Kan past the belt over his tiny Bob-omb face. “When did you get here? B-BOMB.”   
Kan gently took his belt off his explosive companion’s head. After tying the belt around his waist, he patted Pak. “There, there.”  
His voice slow and his tone wobbly, Pak asked more pointless questions as Rok lifted him from the ground. “Why is the Scurvy Scumbag moving while we’re not on it? BOMB.”  
The Koopa put his friend on his shell. “Shyeah, dude, it’s pretty wack. Do not fret, broski, we’ll, like, totally retrieve the ship from this most unrighteous foe.”  
“Get on...” Tir said again. She looked like she was clearly losing her patience.  
Rok, with Pak idly sitting on his shell, hopped onto the small boat behind Tir. “Roger, Ms. Rad-Lady.”  
Captain Mud scowled as he hopped onto the skis from behind. Kan decided to follow behind their boney captain.  
The Dry Bones mumbled angrily, “Here I be again, takin’ orders. I be the captain o' this ship, say I! I should be the one to...” he trailed off and angrily grabbed a hold of either of the skis.  
Thankfully, Kan and Captain Mud’s small feet gave them enough room for both of them to fit on the same skis. Kan held onto Captain Mud, who still held onto the skis.  
“So,” Kan began, “are we gonna chase him or—”  
The speed boat jolted forwards and raced after the ship and the scumdog who stole it. Rok shouted to his Bob-omb friend. “Grab shell, dude!”  
Pak, handless, leaned in closer to Rok. “Beep-beep.”  
Atop the mizzen-mast of Captain Mud’s glorious ship was the black Shy Guy. His elusive, angry mask frowned upon them all. “Y’all some butt-lickin’ churls,” stated the guy, arming his Bill Blaster from over his shoulder. He fired two Bullet Bills from their launcher. His hood flapped in the wind from the blast.   
Tir swerved the speedboat out of the way hurriedly as the explosive Bullet Bills splashed the waters around them; Kan and Captain Mud swung around within inches of each collision. Kan screamed girlishly while the undead pirate merely cackled in amusement. “Aye, a proper battle at last!” he bellowed. “A millennia I waited undersea fer this! Have at ye, then, ye tiny, dark-hooded coward! Yarharharhar-hack!”  
Rok cheered in delight of the action. “Woooo, yeah, baby! Righteous! Righteous!”  
Tir was rapidly approaching the slow-moving Scurvy Scumbag. “Almost there!”  
The dark Shy Guy glared continuously at the approaching band of thieves. “Man, I don’t got time for this!” he groaned. The evil guy scampered over to one of the cannons on his small legs and threw a cannon ball into the machination. “Bye!” he shot the projectile.  
Rok apparently had different plans. Still cheering ecstatically, he climbed atop Tir’s shoulders and jumped off the Shy Gal. The Koopa stomped down on the cannonball and propelled himself closer to the ship while the cannonball fell harmlessly to the sea below. Still rapidly approaching, Rok hid himself into his shell, which was tossed right over the ocean and onto the ship. Rok’s shell smacked the evil guy to the wooden flooring underfoot. Emerging from his shell, he danced over his grounded enemy. “Yeah, baby, I am amped!” He ceased his victorious jig as he noticed a nearby rope close to the cannon that the evildoer had just fired. The Koopa ran over to the rope. “Get up here, man! You’re missing out on the aaaactioooon!”  
As the Koopa tossed the rope down to the other four people below, the small, black Shy Guy tackled him to the ground. “Oh, heck naw!” the guy objected.  
The rope fell down from the boat and landed in the seas. Tir, now with Pak in her hood, climbed the rope. Kan and Captain Mud followed shortly behind. They arrived at the scene to bear witness to the black Shy Guy with the slightly more menacing mask kicking the grounded Rok. “Stop! Getting! In my! W—” He stopped short when he saw the other four had apparently made it onboard. “Aw, sugar honey iced tea...”  
Captain Mud unsheathed both his curved blades and readied himself. “Come on, then! Just you and me—and me ship! Which ye almost stole!”  
“While you’re at it, why don’t you hand over the Shine Sprite?” added Tir, cracking her knuckles.  
“Hey, mister,” Pak greeted in a daze. “What’s your name?”  
The dark Shy Guy looked at all of his opponents as they closed in on him. “Well, uh, y’see, they call me Cag. It used to be an acronym, but, uh—” Tir punched him in the face. Cag was sent rocketing off the ship and into the waters below. “Aw, darn iiiiiiit!” he screamed as he plummeted into the sea with a splash.  
There was a moment of silence thereafter. The waves lapped against the hull as the ship was carried elsewhere by the winds and seas. Captain Mud begrudgingly sheathed his swords again. “I just wanted a fight...” he grumbled.  
“Wow!” Kan enthused. “I can’t believe we all came together like that!”  
Tir blew her knuckles. “Yeah, nice teamwork out there, guys,” she said sarcastically.  
Rok sat up from the floor and held his head. “Ouch. That dude was hella gnarly, brah. Like, One-Punch Gal.”  
Pak waddled next to him. The Bob-omb blinked a few times. His eyes widened ever so slightly. Life seemed to surge back into the small fellow. The explosive buddy looked around the ship. “When did I get here?” he asked.  
The Koopa patted his Bob-omb friend. “Looks like someone’s finally outta their haze. Nice to have ya back, little dude.”  
As the two of them caught up on the most recent events, Kan approached Captain Mud. “So, uh, cap'n, where do we go next? What else do we need?”  
The undead captain pulled out a sticky note from his inner ribcage. “Well, lessee here... we’ve already acquired the Shine Sprite, and I definitely had me an omelette. Now, our next destination be...” He paused. Captain Mud let out a low growl. “The Beanbean Kingdom. Those Beanish folk be so uptight and fancy. I'd hang ‘em by their toes if I ever caught ‘em on me ship. The Beanstar be there, y’see, and that, dear friend, be our next target!”  
Tir looked behind them as their ship continued to sail off. “I’m still not sure how I feel about that Cag guy. He could be back...”  
“I doubt it,” the captain insisted.  
The Scurvy Scumbag was bound for the Beanbean Kingdom.


	8. Collision Course

One day had passed since their chase with Nabbit and the daring—yet anticlimactic—encounter with Cag, the evil Shy Guy. Kan awoke from his deep sleep on his bunker below Rok. He stared up at Rok’s bed and thought about Cag. Cag was an evil Shy Guy. He even had a different mask and darker clothes. Was it possible that Kan could have become just like Cag? Possibilities that seemed so implausible might also feel impossible if said possibility were posed to Kan’s particular posse. After all, Kan’s heart was too pure. It was, indeed, impossible for this particular, ordinary Shy Guy to do horrible things. People who leaned toward the darker nature of themselves were typically out of the ordinary and were famously remembered for it. Lord Bowser was the most evil creature of them all. But no, not Kan. Kan was ordinary. And there was nothing at all ordinary about being evil.  
Kan hopped out of his bed—thankful he wasn’t dead—and, absent of any dread, stared through the opened door of his shed. Well, it was more of a bunker underneath the ship, really, but it felt like a shed to Kan.   
When he emerged, Kan noticed a tiny, itty bitty detail of the ship which was different from before. There were now two massive propellers attached to the deck of the Scurvy Scumbag, which spun around rapidly as they towered over the rest of the structure. They carried the ghastly ship through the skies. Captain Mud gazed up at the propellers proudly. Tir sat cross-legged on the edge of the ship’s bowsprit as she sipped lemonade from small glass with a pink straw.  
Kan stared at the sudden transformation of the ship. “Wh-wh-wh—”  
“Nani?” finished Pak, walking to Kan’s side as he observed the new design of their ship. “When did this happen? BOMB! This looks totally radical, mateys. BOMB!”  
Sweat dripped down Kan’s face. “I feel... overwhelmed. Did this all happen overnight?”  
“Yep!” Tir called from her place on the bowstrip. She dropped her drink down into the abyss below and stood up on the thin, long point at the end of the ship. The Shy Gal calmly walked towards their place on the main docks. “You already had the parts at the bottom of the ship. Mud and I discovered it last night while you were asleep. Apparently, this isn’t the first ship to fly like this. Can you imagine? This ship is just like the Rainbow Cruise now.”  
Kan wandered around the docks as he gazed at the ship’s propellers. He looked past the main deck to see what lay below them. Kan was in both awe and horror at how elevated they were. The tiny little guy observed that they towered over even the clouds. Past the clouds was a large kingdom which looked rather unfamiliar to him. The area was filled with much greenery and had very little construction in between the greens. They appeared to preserve nature above all from a distance, but who knew what they would actually be like when the group of thieves arrived?  
A hand found its way onto Kan’s shoulder. “Sup, brah?”  
Kan shrieked and spun around, only to find Rok staring at him with a confused look. Kan paused for a moment. He cleared his throat. “...Nothin’, brah. Just admiring the distance we’ve made. We seem to be... somewhere.”   
“The Beanbean Kingdom be our current location!” Captain Mud barked angrily. “How could ye be so forgetful, ye pea-brained bag of ‘shrooms? The Beanstar be our next relic of legend we need to unlock our unlimited treasure!”  
Tir nodded with a fold of her arms. “That’s right. I’m not sure if you knew this, but I’ve been after the Beanstar for a while as well. I heard rumors about it in Isle Delfino. Legend has it that it can even grant wishes...”  
Pak thought carefully over the Shy Gal’s remark. “Wishes? And that’s only a piece needed to unlock the infinite treasure? Whoa, BOMB! Couldn’t we just wish for it to be unlocked?”  
“Shyeah, dude, that would be rad,” agreed Rok, nodding his head. “This could be the end of the road.”  
“Yar,” their captain lamented, “were it that easy, I would have done it meself by now. Unfortunately, even the Beanstar isn’t powerful enough to unlock the treasure with a mere command. That be why we need the other two artifacts to amplify its power.”  
Kan sighed. “Of course. That would be too regular. A guy wakes up to find himself on a flying ship, and the most regular thing is why he wouldn’t need two legendary artifacts to power some mystic treasure instead of three. This makes sense to me.”  
Squinting through the glare of the sunlight, Tir stared off into the distance as Kan spoke. “That aside... I think we have a guest approaching us.”  
The small Shy Guy stared up at his companion. “Guest?” He and the rest of the crew gazed on with Tir to find a second large, flying ship approaching them. Attached to the flying contraption was a massive Banzai Bill Cannon. A horde of Goombas all inhabited the deck and surrounded another unique Goomba who sported a pair of large, nervous eyebrows. Upon the ship’s mainsail was a red logo of Bowser’s face. On its crow’s nest stood a green Shy Guy, who carried a long, black flag with a red print of Bowser’s face. A strange Koopa Paratroopa with a bucket on his head was speaking inaudibly to the green Shy Guy at his side. The buckethead hovered next to the crow’s nest on a pair of wings. He looked at the Scurvy Scumbag through a set of binoculars. Through the sunlight, this ship and its crew approached.  
Blinking through his little Bob-omb eyes, Pak looked at the approaching crew in amazement. “Ahoy, dudes! The odds of us finding another flying ship are 1.75 billion to one. Wouldn’t it be awesome if they sold us Mega Mushrooms?”  
“Hold!” Captain Mud shouted. “They got a Banzai Bill Cannon! We’d be outgunned by a long-shot if we fought ‘em...”  
“Outmanned...” Pak added as he observed the horde of Goombas surrounding what appeared to be their bushy-browed leader.  
Rok looked at his Paratroopa counterpart in amazement. “Outnumbered...” agreed the Koopa.  
“Outplanned,” finished Kan, gazing at what he assumed to be his green superior who stood proudly atop the crow's nest as the wind flowed through his flag. “These guys look like they mean business.”  
Tir leaned over to Kan and whispered in his ear. “Kan, I think I should let you know of a new feature that I built into the ship for just such an occasion. You know the anchor? Well, now it’s a pr—”  
“Hello, fellow sky-wanderers!” the Koopa Paratroopa called out from a distance. He waved his hand in exaggerated, large motions. “It’s nice to see fellow minions of Lord Bowser ‘round here above the clouds!”  
“Yeah!” shouted the Goomba with the power-brows as their ship approached the group of merely five thieves. “Where’s your Bowser flag?”  
“W-Well,” Kan started nervously, “you see, it was burnt by the Mario Bros., and they somehow replaced it with a flag with an ‘M’ on it and everything, so we just found this flag with a Dry Bone’s skull on it and thought it looked—”   
“We don’t have one!” Pak told them honestly. “We never had one, actually!” With a snail-like pace, Kan’s gaze gradually met Pak’s. Tir stared at the idiotic Bob-omb with a mixture between fear, anger and irritation all stirring in her gaze at once. Captain Mud scowled angrily at Pak. Rok merely held his breath. “What?” Pak asked.  
“So you’re just pirates, then...” the Koopa Paratroopa stated from a closing distance. “Well, as long as you’re not after our goal, that’s what matters most. I’m called Corporal Paraplonk. The special Goomba down there is Private Goomp. And the green Shy Guy is called Sergeant Guy. Don’t mind him, he doesn’t talk much. We’re after the Beanstar, get me? We made a blunder a while back. We fought the Mario Bros. personally—all of us together in fact—and we gave them a good run for their money! Eventually, they took us out, and Lord Bowser was furious... ”  
“Which is why we need that Beanstar!” Private Goomp insisted. “That’s super important in getting his respect back! We’d be on our way to...”  
“Promotion city, baby!” Corporal Paraplonk enthused with the pump of his fist. “Our paygrade would be doubled at least, and we’d be even higher in the food-chain than we used to be before we blundered up that mission against the Mario Bros.! It’d be a real shame if someone else were after the Beanstar instead of us!”  
Kan looked at his crew in fear. “Guys,” he whispered to them. “No. Don’t even think about it. No. No! They took on the brothers of legend. I’m horrified. If we tried to fight them, we’d be—”  
“Well that’s too bad!” Rok shouted as he walked over to the edge of the docks.   
Kan was trembling in fear. He covered both of his eyes with his hands. “I can’t look.”  
The bold Koopa put his foot right on the edge and stared down the barrel of the Banzai Bill cannon from a distance. “My partners and I are already after the Beanstar! In fact, that’s what we’ve been on our way to retrieve this whole time! That and some other third thing, in fact!”  
The green Shy Guy atop the mast folded his arms. He seemed rather cross, but it was nigh impossible to tell behind his mask. The Goomba questioned on Sergeant Guy’s behalf, “Third? Does that mean the Beanstar’s the second? Whatever happened to the first?”  
“Well, y’see—”  
Captain Mud’s hand covered Rok’s mouth frantically as he spoke through angry, desperate shouts. “I-It be none of yer darn business, ye foolish mortals! Ye couldn’t possibly grasp the concept with yer puny little brains!”  
“Hey!” Corporal Paraplonk shouted. “You callin’ me a peabrain? You’re the peabrain, peabrain!”  
“Them’s fightin’ words!” Private Goomp affirmed, his Goomba squad readied with a sea of glares behind him.  
Pak looked back between the detained Rok and the enemy squadron. A glare formed on his tiny features. “Ready the mainsail!” he shouted. “Fire everything we’ve got at these clowns!”  
“Are ye out of yer mind? Have ye lost yer last brain cell?” Mud bellowed. Releasing the Koopa from his grip, the captain flailed his arms around in a panic. “They have a Banzai Bill Cannon! If they fire that, we’re done for!”  
Pak, randomly filled with determination, spoke boldly. “Then we’ll just have to take those suckers down before they can fire it! Kan! Fire the—uh—whatever you can get your hands on actually!”  
Kan rushed over to one of the cannons as fast as his little body could. “Oh, darn it, what have I gotten myself into?”  
“Rok!” shouted the Bob-omb. “Remember how you wanted to put me in a cannon that one time?”  
“Yeah, dude?” the Koopa called back.  
“Reverse order. Get in the cannon!”  
The Koopa stared at Pak. With a confident nod, Rok affirmed, “Payback, yo. I deserve it, probably.” The radical pirate climbed into one of the cannons and retreated into his shell.  
A call from the enemy ship started, “They’re preparing to battle us!”  
Sergeant Guy looked smugly down on his foes as their puny enemies desperately threw together what little weaponry they had. Corporal Paraplonk called back, “Let’s make those guys pay! We’ll show them the true wrath of Lord Bowser! Ready the ropes! And the cannons! I want a bridge across these ships!”  
“Beat ‘em up!” Private Goomp hyped up his Goomba brethren. “Break his neck!”  
All of the Goombas chanted in unison, “Beat ‘em up! Beat ‘em up! Break his neck! Break his neck!”  
“Alright, men!” Pak called, much to the actual captain’s dismay. “Fire the cannons!”  
Kan fired a cannonball from the metal weapon. Smoke coated his patch of the ship as the projectile roared through the air. It crashed into the enemy’s ship. They’d fired the first blow.  
Tir growled. “Guess it can’t be helped anymore.” She walked over to the cannon with Rok still hiding in its barrel.  
Several smaller cannons from the enemy ship all pointed towards Tir and the Scurvy Scumbag. The enemy cannons were all being manned by Goombas. “On my mark!” Private Goomp cried.  
“Hey guys,” Rok began from his place inside his own cannon, “little help?” Tir fired the cannon with him in it. Rok was sent rocketing through the air. “Wooooo! Yeah!” In his shell, he darted across the docks of the enemy ship. The Koopa smacked through the large mass of Goombas who had aimed the cannons. Private Goomp, who was nearby, barely managed to hop out of the way. Taking out the enemy Goombas, Rok continued to ricochet from wall to wall. Private Goomp's cannons were no longer being manned.  
Kan stood next to a cannon of his own. By its side, he saw a red button with an anchor on it. Tir’s words flash before his eyes. “Huh. How’d I not notice this button earlier? So she turned the anchor into a...” The Shy Guy pushed the button. At once, their anchor flew from its place and rocketed towards the enemy ship. Sergeant Guy and Corporal Paraplonk shrieked in fear under the forceful impact of the anchor’s collision. Private Goomp fell to the floor as the deck shook beneath his feet, and he was consequently smacked by the approaching Rok. A large chain extended between the ships. “...projectile.” Kan’s eyes trailed to Tir in awe. “That gal is so cool.”  
Captain Mud unsheathed his curved twin blades as he rushed across the chain. “Time to throw hesitation to the wind! I ain’t got nothin’ to fear, lads! I’ve already died once! What am I gonna do? Die again? Yarharharhar-haack!”   
The undead pirate jumped off the chain and landed on the enemy ship. He found himself surrounded by a horde of Goombas, which were being smacked to and fro by a rampaging Rok. The Koopa shouted, “Ride the waaaaave!”  
Sergeant Guy plummeted down from his place on the crow's nest and landed atop Rok’s shell, which stopped the Koopa in his tracks. The powerful guy kicked the shell towards Captain Mud. The Dry Bones crossed his swords in front of him to form a makeshift barrier, off which Rok bounced back towards Sergeant Guy. Corporal Paraplonk swooped down from above and met Captain Mud with a kick to the face. The skeletal Koopa’s head was knocked off from his shoulders. “Yar!” shouted the undead as his head rolled across the deck a short distance. “Where’s me body?” The rest of his skeleton collapsed nearby. “Ah, curse it!”  
Sergeant Guy was smacked and knocked off his feet by the oncoming shell, which then ricocheted yet again in the opposite direction. The bucket-headed Koopa Paratroopa swooped down towards Rok. Once he’d built up enough momentum, Corporal Paraplonk found his way in his own shell and clashed shells with Rok. “That promotion is mine!” Paraplonk proclaimed.  
“Shell measuring contest!” Rok observed as they collided. “Most righteous! My shell is superior, yo!”  
Private Goomp landed atop Rok’s shell, which forced him out of his protection, and landed behind Paraplonk. Rok was immediately struck by the force of the corporal's attack. The wind was knocked out of Rok's lungs as the shell carried him against the nearby wall. The Koopa Paratroopa revealed himself from his shell and unveiled a flurry of punches against Rok, who took every one. “Pro-mo-tion!”  
Kan, having finally arrived on the ship, tackled Paraplonk to the ground. “Leave my idiot friend alone!” He slapped the Paratroopa across the face with his tiny hands. “Whap!” The Shy Guy smacked Paraplonk’s other cheek. “Whap!”  
Tir sprinted across the chain with Pak in hand. She smirked. Her biggest fear had been the Banzai Bill. It looked like their enemies would never have the chance to fire it.  
Private Goomp ran towards Kan with a furious warcry. “Aaaah!” the bushy-browed Goomba was met with a devastating axe-kick to the noggin as Tir thunderously landed on his head. She backflipped from her opponent and landed on the ground in front of him. She struck a fighting stance. Goomp had fainted before he hit the ground. Pak hopped from Tir’s arms and calmly waddled across the hectic battlefield.  
Sergeant Guy sprung back up to his feet, only to be met by an angry, reformed skeleton pirate. “I pulled me body back together, say I!” Captain Mud brashly proclaimed. “Now prepare to be me chicken dinner!”  
Three Goombas had stacked themselves on top of each other—part of what little remained of Goomp’s squad—and charged towards the undead captain furiously. Sergeant Guy ran to the Banzai Bill cannon while the three approaching Goombas towered over Captain Mud. “Ah, curse it again!” he shouted.  
Rok charged towards Sergeant Guy. “Oh, no you don’t!”  
Corporal Paraplonk kicked Kan with both legs off of him. Kan tumbled a short distance across the wooden floor below. Paraplonk flew towards Rok. “Oh, yes he does!” he countered.  
A hand grabbed Paraplonk’s foot. The Paratroopa looked behind him to see that Tir, an extraordinary Shy Gal, had gripped him from below. “Hey, buddy!” she shouted. “Let’s have a little chat!”  
“...Can we talk later?” he offered. “I’m kinda in the middle of—”   
Tir slammed him down on the deck. Two Goombas charged her from opposite ends. The Shy Gal used Paraplonk as a melee weapon and clubbed one across the head. Tir spun around and beat the helpless Paratroopa into the other Goomba’s side.   
Rok tackled Sergeant Guy to the ground. “Gotcha!” he affirmed.  
Pak calmly approached and stood by Rok’s side. He stared down at Sergeant Guy. “I’m an explosive. You wanna not explode? Better do what I say. Love you!”  
The resilient guy slugged the Koopa in his face and knocked Rok off of his body. He sprang to his feet and somersaulted backwards to land on the edge of the ship’s bowstrip. Sergeant Guy reached into his pocket, and retrieved a remote with a large, red button. The green Shy Guy pressed the button, gave a salute, and then simply fell off from the front of the ship.  
At once, the five remaining Goombas all burst into puffs of pink smoke. From the smoke emerged multiple copies of Sergeant Guy. They all beat their fists together and assumed fighting stances.  
Captain Mud, Tir, Kan, Pak, and Rok all regrouped. Together, they stood face to face against five Sergeant Guys and Paraplonk, who was a bit dazed, but still able to fight. “P-Promotion, man!” he said in an unfocused tone. “Crud, you guys are actually pretty tough! Say, where’s Private Goomp?”  
“I beat him up, but I haven’t broken his neck yet,” Tir noted.  
“Bring it, yo!” Rok shouted. “We’re gonna show you what real teamwork is!”  
“Yeah!” Pak agreed. “Teamwork and stuff!”  
Kan looked behind him where Sergeant Guy had fallen. He turned back and whispered to Captain Mud. “So, uh, that guy... You think he’ll be alright?”  
“'Tis not me concern,” the Dry Bones curtly proclaimed. “Let’s put an end to this!”  
Tir was the first to spring into action. She rushed forward fist-first and smashed her hand into the first Sergeant Guy clone, who immediately reverted back into an unconscious Goomba. Rok sprinted forward and curled himself into his shell. Pak jumped up and landed harmlessly on top of Rok. The Bob-omb surfed on the Koopa’s shell for several moments until Rok made impact with one of the clones. Captain Mud took a bone from his ribcage and hurled it at another of the clones. After the enemy was struck, Pak jumped off Rok’s shell and threw himself on top of the same enemy sergeant. Two pink puffs of smoke burst side by side, and two more unconscious Goombas lay on the ground.  
Corporal Paraplonk swooped down towards Kan. The Shy Guy yelped and scurried out of the way. Kan darted across the main deck of the ship with the Paratroopa inches behind him. “Aaaah!” Kan screamed in fear.  
Rok’s shell rebounded and collided with Corporal Paraplonk’s gut. Rok emerged from his shell, stood on one leg, and delivered a crane kick to Paraplonk’s face. “Whoocha!” Paraplonk, already dazed before, was now barely standing. He was met with a flurry of three crane kicks. “Whoocha-cha-chow!” The Paratroopa fell on the ground, unconscious.  
The two remaining sergeant copies simply exchanged worried glances. “Uh,” one of them spoke in a disgruntled Goomba’s voice. “Sh-Should we keep fighting, or...?”  
A low rumbling bellowed beneath them. The wooden deck began to tremble underfoot. Kan, Pak, and Rok all exchanged confused glances. Tir looked around for the source. Captain Mud unsheathed both his blades. “Have at ye, ye cowardly scoundrel! Show yerself!”  
From underneath the ship emerged a massive, green, humanoid robot. The mechanism had two breast plates made of glass in its circular torso, between which were two Bill Blasters. From its circular body peeked out the upper half of a round head with two bright, glowing eyes. Between the headlights was a glass dome, in which Sergeant Guy could be seen piloting the device. On each side of the machination’s spherical, green body was a line of three Bill Blasters in a row. Its flexible, noodly, robotic arms had two gargantuan, spiked, green hammers with red faces.  
One of the fake sergeants exclaimed, “Holey Swiss cheese! Where did he get the blueprints to Bowser Jr.’s old Megahammer? That thing’s huge!”  
Sergeant Guy began to laugh in a maniacal fashion. Many malevolent masterminds would marvel at the monstrosity that made these many money-grabbers look mini. Indeed, their sizes were dwarfed by the devilish device: the Megahammer. Sergeant Guy loomed over them in his massive contraption; his laughter rang throughout the ship.  
Tir looked at her four companions all gawking in awe of the sheer size of the machine. Only its torso loomed over the entirety of the ship. It was too large to fit where they stood. It hovered in midair above them. The Shy Gal spoke. “Go,” she ordered. “Leave this to me.”  
Kan watched as Tir confidently approached the colossal contraption. “But-but-but, there’s no way you can take down that thing.”  
“You’re right,” she said without turning back.   
“No lie?” Rok asked with concern.  
“We will hold a grand funeral for you,” Pak stated. “I’ll sing 'Amazing Grace' for you in your passing...”  
“Ye’ve lost yer marbles,” Captain Mud realized. “Ye'r delusional...”  
Tir only laughed at the confused and worried group. “I didn’t go in without a plan. We may have something that can take this bad boy down...”  
Kan, Rok, and Captain Mud all turned around. Behind them was the massive, unused Banzai Bill Cannon which stood tall and proud above the rest of the ship.  
“What is it?” Pak asked. Kan grabbed Pak’s cheeks and turned the Bob-omb around. “Oh. That’s a biiiiig gun!”  
“Don’t just stand there, ye degenerate nincompoops!” Captain Mud shouted at Kan, Pak, and Rok. “Get to loadin’ the Banzai Bill! The lass can only hold it off for so long!”  
“Uh,” Rok looked back from the Banzai Bill to his undead captain. “Y-Yeah, sure, dude! Captain! Sir, Captain, dude!”  
Kan scurried ahead of his two teammates towards the massive cannon. Pak, Rok and Captain Mud followed shortly behind.   
Tir approached the Megahammer being piloted by Sergeant Guy. The menacing guy’s two clones stood at the ready in front of the monumental automaton. Sergeant Guy cackled madly as he swung the massive hammer down from above. Tir gazed up in awe of the weapon as its shadow coated a third of the ship. The clones of Sergeant Guy stared up at the incoming hammer. “So, uh, you’ve worked with him long enough to know that he wouldn’t hit us, right?” asked the rightmost clone in a Goomba’s voice.  
“Run!!” the other shouted as he zoomed away from the hammer. Shaking her head, the Shy Gal broke into a sprint as well and darted out from the shadow’s reach. The mountainous hammer crashed vociferously down onto the ship; Tir was inches away from the collision. The two Goombas in disguise were crushed by the hammer just shortly behind Tir as splintered wood and bent nails exploded from the flooring below. Bursting from the hammer, a floor-level shockwave of energy was expelled all across the deck. As Tir continued to run, she cartwheeled forward and bounced into the air like a gymnast over the deadly wave of electricity below.  
Kan, Pak, Rok and Mud were all still running towards the Banzai Bill cannon. Kan shrieked. The Shy Guy fearfully evaded the electric shockwave with a tiny hop. Rok jumped above the oncoming lightning wave. “Feel the heat, brooo!” he cried.  
Captain Mud safely leapt high into the air with ease before he fell down by his crew’s side. “That thing’s nothin’ compared to a real sailor! Yarharharhar-haack!”  
The determined Shy Gal glared forward at the massive machination and darted her way past the hammers. As the machine slowly lifted its large, spiked hammer from the floor, it revealed a gargantuan hole in the ship’s exterior. Sergeant Guy scowled within his glass dome. The green Shy Guy let out a battle cry as Bullet Bills burst out from eight different directions from all over its body. Tir artfully and majestically dodged out of harm’s way time and again. She zigzagged across the deadly terrain while Sergeant Guy’s second gargantuan hammer came tumbling down. Tir looked behind her to see the eight Bullet Bills charging towards her four crewmates. With a prayer in her heart, Tir tore her gaze away and ran with all her might towards the massive machine in her attempts to outrun the hammer’s impact. The hammer collided down with the ship, this time a bit further away from Tir. Sending yet another powerful shockwave down across the deck, the hammer shattered the entire front third of the ship. Sergeant Guy’s insanity only became more visible as he roared with laughter through the broken wood falling down to the earth below the clouds. The Shy Gal backflipped into the air and landed atop the large hammer. She ran across the long, robotic, noodly arm towards the glass dome, in which the mad Sergeant Guy continued to howl hysterically. The remaining hammer crashed down towards Tir, who smirked in response. She flew from the creature’s arm as it struck itself by mistake. After she landed, Tir looked at the resulting damage. A large dent was made in the Megahammer’s arm, but it wasn’t quite enough to incapacitate it. She needed more firepower. “C’mon...” she muttered underneath her breath.  
Still bolting to the fated weapon at the end of the ship, Captain Mud turned around to see eight Bullet Bills storming their way. “Incoming, mateys!” shouted he, unsheathing both his blades. “Brace yerselves!”  
Captain Mud sliced across one of the Bullet Bills and the pieces exploded nearby. Kan leapt above one of the oncoming projectiles and landed on top of it. In his attempt to stomp it down like the Mario Bros. had, he’d been swept away by the Bullet Bill’s power. However, it was sent spiraling out of control due to its unexpected passenger. It shrieked through the air as the Bill collided with a second of its kind. Kan launched from the exploding projectiles and landed not far away from his original path; he continued his sprint towards the Banzai Bill.  
Rok simply chuckled. “Gnarly, brah!” The Koopa retreated into his shell and got in the paths of each of the oncoming Bullet Bills.  
Pak surfed upon Rok’s shell for a few moments. The Bob-omb turned around fearfully as he witnessed the oncoming Bullet Bills. Kan ran alongside the surfing explosive and shouted, “I gotcha! I gotcha!” Pak nodded bravely and hopped from his place on Rok’s shell into Kan’s arms, who swiftly carried him towards their destination.   
Each of the Bullet Bills burst into flames and smoke against Rok’s impervious barrier. When the fog cleared, Rok emerged from his protective state and ran alongside his comrades. “Radicaaaal!”  
At last, Kan, Pak, Rok and Captain Mud made it to the Banzai Bill’s launcher. “Alrighty, lads!” Captain Mud bellowed. “Let’s fire this thing at the Megahammer and let her waltz with Death!” They approached the massive cannon, behind which was an equally impressive Banzai Bill. “Now then!” Shouted their undead captain, unsheathing both of his twin blades and motioning them towards the cannon vertically. “Everybody on my command! Heeaave-hooo, men!”   
Kan looked back and forth between the Dry Bones and the colossal weapon. “You mean, just the three of us have to haul that thing into the actual cannon? I thought it’d be, like, already loaded in advance...”  
“Nothin’ in this life is free, lad! It’s all you, Kanny-boy!” Mud bellowed. “Heave-ho, say I!”  
“Bruh,” Rok started. “You’re not gonna... help?”  
“I’m all bones!” he defended. “Ye see any muscle on this dry skeleton before ye? I don’t think so! It’s all up to you, fer the last time!”  
“But...” started Pak, looking up helplessly at the massive projectile.  
“No buts!” Captain Mud retorted. “Away with it!”  
Kan sighed. With his tiny little hands, he grabbed the Banzai Bill. He strained to lift it. Rok joined in. The progress was slow. It was raised inches from off the ground. Pak continued to watch the two struggle with all they had. Mud noticed the Bob-omb’s lack of participation. “Help them out, ye lazy excuse fer a firecracker!” he commanded.  
“I don’t have any haaaands!” Pak wailed sorrowfully.  
The Dry Bones let out an annoyed sigh. “Argh, ye'r all worthless, makin’ me do this with ye.” The pirate captain grabbed ahold of the Banzai Bill with Kan and Rok. Together, they lifted the Banzai Bill off the ground a few more inches. They carefully placed it in its cannon. “Fire the cannons!” Mud yelled.  
Once the Banzai Bill was loaded, the mother of all projectiles was immediately launched from its blaster. The horrific weapon soared through the air. Its loud scream pierced through Kan's ears as it rocketed towards the giant, robotic doombringer, which still adamantly chased after Tir as she zigzagged around its firepower.  
Sergeant Guy paused his concentrated assault against Tir and froze in place. A few seconds passed. The green Shy Guy slowly turned his gaze to the left outside the glass dome. The Banzai Bill was rapidly approaching. His power-induced madness had been reduced to shambles in mere seconds. Sergeant Guy let out a scream as he rapidly slapped the eject button. The glass dome opened and his chair sprung from the rest of the machination.  
The Megahammer was struck by the Banzai Bill. The projectile violently erupted into cinders and flame. A large explosion of concentrated fire energy slowly began to expand out towards the rest of the remaining two-thirds of the ship, which was still attached to the Scurvy Scumbag via anchor. The green Shy Guy quickly dug into the chair which had been ejected from the Megahammer. Underneath its cushion was a parachute. Swiping it, Sergeant Guy and Tir both retreated. Sergeant Guy scooped up Private Goomp in one arm as he ran and Corporal Paraplonk in the other. With both his comrades in tow, he jumped off the deck of the flying ship and activated his parachute.   
The explosion climaxed in a last supernova of rage before Tir landed near her friends. One of her legs had been badly burned. One third of the ship remained, and it was not stable. Kan offered his hand to the Shy Gal, and he helped Tir to her feet. She winced in pain. “This place is gonna blow!” said the Shy Guy.  
“I love explosions...” Pak commented as he stared at the crumbling, burning ship around him.  
“Let’s bail, brah!” Rok suggested as he grabbed Pak and ran towards the anchor. The anchor’s chain still provided a connection between the falling ship and theirs. “Aw man, this burning boat is unrad, dude!”  
The others had made their way to the chain. Tir limped along with Kan’s help. Captain Mud swiftly ran along the makeshift bridge between the two ships. “Follow me!” the undead shouted.  
The anchor was slipping out from the broken shards of wood lodged into the crumbling ship. It couldn’t support much more weight, Kan realized. “It can only hold one person at a time!” the Shy Guy shared.   
“Duly noted, yo!” shouted Rok, scooping his Bob-omb friend in his arms. “I got a plan, bud!” Once Captain Mud got back on the Scurvy Scumbag, the Koopa darted along. He threw Pak across the gap between the two flying ships. Pak screamed in fear as he soared harmlessly in the air and landed gently on the other boat.   
“Tir, you’re going to have to do this one by yourself!” shouted Kan over an eruption of flame that had burst out from the ship behind him. “I believe in you. You’re extraordinary, after all!”  
Tir gave Kan a determined look. “So are you, Kan. You’re fantastic!”  
Kan nodded bravely. “Thanks! A really fast, blue guy told me that once. Now go!” Tir weakly limped towards the chain. Her singed leg made the walk excruciating. She couldn’t keep her balance. The Shy Gal tripped over and fell a foot before she grabbed ahold of the chain. “Tir!” Kan shouted fearfully.  
“Come on, yo!” Rok cheered. “You can do it!”  
“There’s an explosive fire in your soul!” Pak encouraged his friend. “I believe in you!”  
“Get over here! Y’can’t be so lousy as to quit, now!” Captain Mud beckoned.  
Tir’s eyes were lit ablaze with determination. Through the pain searing through her leg, she slowly crawled across the chain. “I’m not dying here. I’m not dying like this!”  
The anchor broke from its place in the enemy’s ship. The bridge was broken. Tir screamed as the chain fell. Kan stared on in horror across the Scurvy Scumbag. His friends’ eyes were glazed with fear. For a moment, everything went silent. Even the burning, crashing ship on which Kan stood seemed to go mute. All hope had been lost.  
The chain swung limply to and fro from the Scurvy Scumbag. “Tir...” said the Bob-omb as tears began to well in his eyes. Sorrowfully, Pak looked back to his Shy Guy friend who stood hopelessly surrounded by death. “K-Kan...”  
Kan watched the chain dangle from side to side. His eyes widened. Tir—injured, singed, and disgruntled—valiantly continued to climb the metal links to their end. She hadn't let go. “Toss the rope!” she shouted desperately as she tried her best to ignore the clouds hovering just below her.  
“She’s alive!” Rok shouted. “It doesn’t look like the chain will make it to the deck anymore!”  
Captain Mud ran to the ropes himself without hesitation and tossed a line Tir’s way. “Don’t go statin’ the obvious like a dunce!” he shouted. “Help me pull her this-a-way!” Rok and Captain Mud both heaved on the rope with a desperately clinging Shy Gal on its other end. After several long moments of heaving and grunting, they had safely retrieved Tir from certain peril.  
Kan, unfortunately, was no amazing hero who could do outrageous things. Kan couldn’t escape a seemingly inevitable demise and triumphantly emerge from an exploding, falling ship. He was only a thief, not some kind of death-defying magician. No! Kan was an ordinary Shy Guy. There was nothing at all remarkable about Kan.  
But... Kan can, thought Kan. But only Kan thought that Kan could, at least as far as Kan knew.  
“Can he make it?” asked Pak quietly as he stared without hope at his friend.  
Captain Mud watched Kan closely. “He’s a goner,” he said.   
“No,” corrected Tir, grinning through her pain. “He’s fantastic.”  
The chain swung back and forth between the Scurvy Scumbag and the near-dead airship. Kan was sweating as the heat of the flames beat against his coat. He took in a deep breath of air. The Shy Guy ran as the ship combusted into a glory of fire behind him. He jumped off of its deck. The chain swung his way. Kan reached out his hands.  
He missed entirely. Captain Mud tossed the same rope he’d used for the previous rescue Kan’s way. Kan fumbled around before he grabbed on tight. His body sild down across the rope until he only hung to the last few inches. Kan harmlessly, though fearfully, dangled at its bottom. “Mom!” he shouted. “Mommy!” Trembling, Kan slowly climbed up the rope until he reached its zenith.   
Kan crawled onto the deck. He held onto the ground. Drenched in sweat, Kan panted from the fear of a near-death experience. “Oh, my stars, I’m alive. I’m alive? I am alive, right? Tell me I’m alive.”   
“You’re alive, brah,” Rok confirmed. “The legend is true.”  
Kan rolled over on his back and stared at the blue heavens above him. He and Tir lay next to each other. They were both panting as they desperately tried to regain their composure. Captain Mud stared down the both of them. Pak was by his side. The Bob-omb merely watched them for a few moments before saying softly, “Some species of iguanas can inflate themselves in order to escape flooding.”  
Rok looked at Pak with genuine amazement in his eyes. “Whoa dude, you know, like, a lot! I’m always totally stoked to hear the random facts you know!”   
Captain Mud’s palm met his face as he let out a long, growly, “Yarrh... Let’s take a moment to recuperate...”  
Tir nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I could use some respite.” A smile tugged at her lips as she watched Rok gawk in amazement over his knowledgeable Bob-omb friend. “You guys are all hopeless, you know that?”  
“Yeah,” Kan agreed as he continued to search the blue skies. “Hopeless...”


	9. Ballroom Blitz

A few hours had passed since the group’s encounter with Sergeant Guy, Private Goomp, and Corporal Paraplonk. Captain Mud offered his injured crewmates a supply of Mushrooms to heal their wounds. The Scurvy Scumbag had landed gently on the Beanbean Kingdom’s soil minutes ago.  
“So,” Kan began as he sat on the edge of the old, haunted pirate ship, “how will we know where to go? We made it to the Beanbean Kingdom, but where’s the actual Beanstar?” The Shy Guy looked out upon the peaceful village within the kingdom. “It could be anywhere in here.”  
“Holy ship!” came a shrill, annoying voice from a distance. “Oh, dear me! Goodness gracious!”  
Kan gradually, fearfully turned his head to the source of the ear-piercing, shrieky tone. “No... Don’t tell me...  
Before the Scurvy Scumbag stood a Toad dressed in a fancy, black and white suit. He wore classic, red spots on his white mushroom cap. “What’s a haunted ship doing near a fancy party? This isn’t recreational decor, is it?”  
“Why are you even here?” Kan asked in desperation.   
Captain Mud growled. “Ye ungrateful Toads and yer offensive slang...”  
“Wait,” Tir began as she joined Kan’s side, “did you say that there’s a party somewhere around here?”  
“Why do we care?” begged the Shy Guy. Tir elbowed Kan sharply.  
“Yeah!” the Toad responded with a hearty smile. “It’s just over there behind where you guys landed! I’m not sure how you managed to get your hands on a haunted ship, but it looks like it’ll pay off for you guys!”  
Captain Mud only let out another begrudging growl. Pak, however, looked excited. “Yay! A party! BOMB! I’m super pumped! I’ve never been invited to one of those before!”  
“Totally,” Rok added. “I’m down to clown with—” The sound of a heavy object falling to the dirt beneath cracked from beyond the back of the ship. “Yo... did y’all—”  
“You fellas can’t go to the party looking like that!” the Toad responded. Gesturing to his fancy clothes, the Toad said, “You gotta dress all nice and fancy! It’s a formal event, y’see? It’s recreational, like I thought this fancy ship was! They’re all celebrating the Beanstar’s glory. That’s what it’s supposed to be about anyway, but really, it’s just a ball with fancy music, dancing, and such.”  
Tir looked down at her own clothes. Kan tugged at one of his sleeves. The Dry Bones looked at his skeletal hands for several long moments as he thought how clothes would fit him without being too big. Rok scratched the back of his head nervously. Pak stared at the Toad. “I’m just a Bob-omb. What clothes should I wear?”  
“Just put on a bowtie! We’ll call it square, no worries!”  
“Sweet!” Pak enthused.  
“So,” began the Shy Gal, “any tips on nearby stores we could buy or rent fancy clothes from?”  
“Oh yeah!” the Toad enthused with a point towards a small hut not too far from the larger, glamorous building in which the ball was being held. “It’s open for today only just for this event. Those guys are only profiting off the recreational celebration. They’re scumbags, but it’s useful for people who don’t already own suits or dresses! Go ahead!”  
As the Toad began his march inside the massive building, Tir leapt down from the Scurvy Scumbag and walked towards the hut with a smirk. “Well, you heard him. Let’s get ourselves some clothes.”  
“Yo,” Rok began, “they’re gonna be expensive, but killer.”  
“Who says we had to pay?” Tir asked. “We’re thieves, right?”  
“Whooaaaaa,” Pak gawked at the brave Shy Gal as she marched towards the small hut. “She’s soooo coooool.”  
The Dry Bones jumped down from his ship and landed next to the Shy Gal. “Come along, men,” said he, unsheathing his blades, “we’ve got a shop to lift!”  
Carefully, Kan followed after them. He grumbled, “I’m not sure that’s how someone should refer to shoplifting...”  
Meanwhile, Sergeant Guy, Corporal Paraplonk, and Private Goomp had descended from the Shy Guy’s parachutes harmlessly into a tree beneath them. In a small cluster of the woodland vegetation, Sergeant Guy fed both of his crewmates Mushrooms. They were weakened but no less ready to continue their mission. Sergeant Guy was staring through a pair of binoculars into the window of a large, stuffy-looking building.  
“What do you see, man?” Paraplonk asked. “Is it the target?”  
Removing the binoculars, Sergeant Guy nodded.  
Private Goomp grinned happily, “Oh boy! When we get that Beanstar, Lord Bowser’s gonna promote us again for sure! We’re gonna be rich and famous! And all the Goomba ladies will love me!”  
Sergeant Guy let out a sigh.  
“Let’s wait for the right moment to strike, huh?” clarified Paraplonk. “That’s what you’re thinking, right, Sergeant Guy?”  
The green Shy Guy quietly nodded his head. He rubbed his hands together with a soft chuckle.  
Underneath the tree, a black Shy Guy toting a Bill Blaster on his back walked through a quaint forest path towards the same building. “Suckers let me stow away on their ship all this time. That fight looked wild. Glad I didn’t have to show my face during the whole thing.”  
Cag stared up at the building. A large window on what seemed to be the third floor shared with the public the muffled events contained within. A female Toad with reddish-brown spots on her cap and a deep mahogany, off the shoulder, fur accented dress sang alongside a band of Toads in front of a microphone. The Toads all wore sunglasses and black suits as they played their various instruments. Far to the left of this band of Toads was a Beanstar. It stood tall and proud on a pedestal. It was protected within a glass vase.  
The Shy Guy in black grinned behind his mask. “You know, I may have been one-shot not too long ago, but I’m feelin’ pretty lucky right now.” Cag looked around. There were bushes, trees, and flower patches. Other than that, this place didn’t have much else going for it. It was filled with rich, annoyingly gorgeous vegetation. “Well, if she’s gonna be there, I’d better lay low.” With his Bill Blaster at the ready, Cag scurried into one of the bushes on his itty-bitty Shy Guy legs.  
“I’m tellin’ ya!” a Beanish man shouted as he walked beside another shorter Beanish in a blue suit. “I don’t know where they went! I left the register for five minutes to use the bathroom, came back, and found all my shop’s clothes had been set on fire! My whole freakin’ shop’s in smoke!”   
“Is this...” the shorter green man in blue started, “what those folks call, ‘karma’?”  
“No, I’m not in a coma!” the apparent shopkeeper shouted. “I’m not dreaming this! This is real! Although I do wish it was a dream...”  
“Maybe if you made the clothes more accessible...” the Beanish in blue mumbled before his taller counterpart burst into tears.  
“After we extinguished the flames ourselves, nothing remained of my beautiful clothes store but ash! My shop! My money! My dreams!”  
Kan tiptoed on his tiny little feet with the stealth of a maniacal, master thief. He was dressed in a red suit with a white undershirt. The top two of the three buttons were undone. He bound his suit together with his belt and wore fancy black shoes.  
Pak waddled casually next to the tiptoeing Kan. The only thing that had changed about Pak was a new colorful, yellow bowtie with red spots. The small Bob-omb beamed contentedly. “Bow ties were invented in the 1800’s. Did you know that they were originally worn by mercenaries? I feel like a mercenary after we lit that place on fire.”  
Rok came out with a stunning, blue button-up shirt. He wore red khakis and fascinating shoes which appeared to hold galaxies inside them. Staring at the footwear, the Koopa awed quietly, “Yo, check out these kicks...”  
Tir walked behind the group in a short, sleeveless, deep red dress. The dress was silky and boasted printed flowers dotted from the top till the waist, around which a ribbon was fastened. From the ribbon fell down a smooth, pleated skirt which fell a few inches below her knees. On her wrists were two golden bracelets with red gems in their centers.  
“Wowie,” Pak began, “you look great, Tir!”  
“Thanks, cutie,” the Shy Gal responded without interest.   
The fancily dressed thieves approached Captain Mud, who had been waiting for them near the entryway of the building. “Well then, me faithful crew,” began the undead, “I don’t think that I’d be able to enter in that place without stirrin' up some kind of suspicion. They’d be able to see straight through me! No doubt about it!”  
“Yeah,” Kan agreed, “most people can.”  
“So,” the pirate captain continued, “I’ll have to pull a stealth mission. Nobody will put an eye upon me, say I! Kan, y'er the smallest thief here. Ye stole me secret pearl and passed the test all those days ago; ye'r the expert at stealin’ things, surely.”  
Kan began to sweat nervously. “I-I’m what?” he asked.  
“Ye be the most likely to go unnoticed,” Captain Mud went on. “Should anything get ye caught, the rest of us will be yer backup.”  
“Sweet!” Rok enthused. “Looks like we have a plan, dudes! Now, let us delve into this most radical adventure.”  
“Yeah!” Pak cheered along with his Koopa friend. “Radical!”  
“I think that everyone here except me is a negative influence on you,” the suited Shy Guy said.  
Tir made no comment. Her gaze carried aimlessly into the distance as their banter continued on. The Shy Gal’s expression had been muted.  
Kan tugged on her arm. “Hey. Hey, Tir. Hello? Tir. Hi?”  
Tir shook her head. She looked focused again. “Hey, sorry. I’m just thinking about a few things.”  
“What things?” Pak asked. “I want you to know that you can always share anything with us that’s bothering you. Your feelings deserve validation just like anyone else.”  
“It doesn’t matter,” the Shy Gal responded brusquely as she walked towards the building. “Let’s just get this over with.”  
Rok watched Tir lead the way. “Something tells me she’s got her head in the clouds. Maybe we’ll have the chance to talk about it when this whole mission is over with. Better get this started, yo.”  
“Well,” Kan started, “infinite treasure is infinite. I wonder what kind of seal the wizards put on it.”  
“In fact,” the bow-tied Bob-omb added, “why did that kind of treasure need to be sealed away in the first place? BOMB. It’s just infinite gold, right?”  
Captain Mud cleared his throat. “Well, if ye need to know, it was, uh, too dangerous for it to be accessed by common thieves. It could allow only the worst of people to rise into power! And that would result in a corrupt government run by rich losers!”  
“Wack,” Rok commented. The Koopa began to walk after Tir. “Glad our political system ain’t like that.”  
“Uh-huh,” Pak added as he waddled next to Rok. “Who knows what would happen? BOMB! We may even live in a dystopia where people who were sick had to beg for their lives on the internet and hope that enough people donated to their cause.”  
Kan followed after his two friends. Putting one of his small hands on his mouth, the Shy Guy said, “Wow, Pak, that’s deep. What made you think of that example, specifically?”  
“Just a funny feeling,” the fancier Bob-omb stated. “Nothing major. Anyways, I’m excited about this party! BOMB. It’ll be the first party that I’ve been to! People didn’t usually invite me to any of their parties for fear that I’d blow a fuse. But I’m cool! BOMB. People like me. You guys like me, right?”  
“We love you, Pak,” Rok corrected his friend. “If I had a party goin’ on, I’d invite you and Kan. We’d all have a three-dude party.”  
Kan smiled behind his mask. “Aw, how thoughtful... Maybe once we’re millionaires, we can host the best party in the world. And nobody will be invited but the three of us!”   
The small, suited Shy Guy opened the doors to the larger building. Inside the building was a wide, open room filled with well-dressed Toads, Beanish people, and dapper-looking gold and silver Bob-ombs exchanging idle chit chat with one another. There was a staircase and a sign which pointed to it with a large arrow. Underneath the arrow, another circular sign read, “Ballroom event upstairs. No tickets or invites required. Dress formally.” There was no sign of Tir on this floor.  
“Are we down one Shy Gal? Can anyone spot her?” Kan asked as he searched through the crowd of conversing gentlemen and upstanding women. “I have no idea where she is...”  
“Everyone here looks so rich,” Pak added without looking for Tir. “It must be the reason they were able to actually afford those fancy clothes before we burnt the place down. Those prices were outrageous. 600 gold coins for a bow tie seemed crazy to me, but these guys have full-on tuxedos! They must be made of cash!”  
“Tiiiir?” Rok called out. “Hellooo?”  
“Must be upstairs securing the area,” Kan observed. He carried himself towards the staircase. “Alright, let’s steal ourselves a Beanstar...” The little Shy Guy made his way up the stairs. When he got to the top, he saw a vast ballroom. The place was already booming. A stunning Toad in a dark, mahogany dress brought the whole ball to life as she sang into a microphone which stood atop a tall stand. Her mushroom cap wore matching mahogany spots. The Toad swayed in front of the mic as she poured out her voice. Other Toads wearing suits played drums, trumpets, and the piano to back her up. Beanish, Toads, and fancier Bob-ombs were conversing amongst themselves. Others danced to the music of the Toad who sung with her band. They exchanged partners interchangeably.  
To the left of the woman’s staged performance was the Beanstar. The mystical wish-granter rested peacefully on a purple velvet pillow atop a tall, stone platform. “A pedestal,” Pak observed. “Look at it sparkle.”  
“I can’t help but feel like all the things we’ve been after so far have been on pedestals,” confessed the Koopa. “Like, what’s the deal? Are we just drawn to them by fate?”  
“Hey!” Kan exclaimed. “There’s Tir in the crowd!” The others looked on and found the well-dressed Shy Gal wading her way through the crowd. She stopped for a moment to chat with a Beanish folk. Kan knew she was slowly getting closer to the Beanstar. “How inconspicuous,” Kan admired.  
“Psst, Kan,” Pak whispered to his Shy Guy friend. “Do you know where the bathroom is? I gotta pee.”  
“Same,” Rok admitted. “I’ve been holding it for a while now actually.”  
Turning to his idiot friends, Kan stared on with a disbelieving, empty expression. “Really? You’re serious?”  
“You gotta go when you gotta go,” Pak stated. “Where’s the bathroom?”  
“Yo,” Rok wondered, “can Bob-ombs even whizz? Like what happens?”  
“You really don’t wanna know,” Pak warned him.  
Sighing, Kan’s eyes searched for a restroom. Nearby the Beanstar, there were two restroom doors for men and women. It looked like a third was in the process of being built, but construction had been ceased due to the location’s current use for the ball. Next to the doors was a mannequin. For some reason it was naked, but the Shy Guy didn’t really care about that. Kan pointed towards the doors. “There. Go pee. Come back. Steal thing. Then we leave.”  
“Sweet! Come on, Rok, let’s use the loo,” began Pak, waddling towards the bathroom.  
Following after him, Rok added, “Just two dudes, headin’ to the bathroom, sittin’ three stalls apart ‘cause they’re not gay.”  
As they casually sauntered off towards the restrooms, Kan snuck towards the Beanstar. Thankfully, his expert stealthiness made it easy for him to hide in plain sight. Not a single soul suspected him. The Beanish folk stared at Kan as he tried and failed to be sneaky. A few Bob-ombs looked bothered by the creeping guy. “I say,” a gold, top-hatted Bob-omb uttered behind his thick, white mustache, “did someone leave their child here? I didn’t think this ballroom would have allowed invalids.”  
“Don’t worry,” reassured a mature, pink Bob-omb underneath her priceless, silver jewelry, “he seems to be approaching his mother. That poor Shy Gal must work herself silly caring for such a misbehaving child.”  
Kan was convinced that he was invisible to the naked eye. He confronted Tir. She seemed to be staring at the Beanstar cautiously. “Um,” Kan began, “excuse me. Tir? Don’t you think you should be following the plan?”  
“Oh, yes,” Tir assured the Shy Guy, “I am following my plan.”  
“Great, well then—wait... your plan?”  
The gorgeous Toad atop her stage spoke clearly to her audience, “Thank you, Beanish, Bob-ombs, Toads, and all those who have come here today. I, Toodloo, have adored your company. You’ve been lovely. Now, we’ve prepared our next song to be a real dilly. Get ready to dance with your partners, feel free to reach out and dance with strangers. Please, put your hands together for our new, greatest hit: Bamacre!”  
Tir snickered. Partners began to waltz with each other all around them. Kan looked to and fro in uncertainty. Then his tiny little Shy Guy brain hatched a plan. “Oh my stars. Tir, they’re distracted. We may be able to—”  
The Shy Gal grabbed a hold of Kan. She lifted the shorter guy off the ground and held him close to her. “May I have this dance?”  
Kan blushed a deep red. He stared at Tir for a moment, then back at the Beanstar next to her. He desperately reached for the Beanstar and squirmed around in her arms. “Must. Get. Treasure.”  
Tir carried Kan away from the Beanstar and waltzed around with him. The Shy Gal twisted and turned through the crowd of dancing Toads, Beanish and Bob-ombs. Kan stared at Tir as they danced. Tir only snickered at him again as they danced near the restrooms.  
Emerging from the restrooms, Rok now wore a trench coat and looked much taller than he did before. His feet didn’t look like they had the same types of shoes, however; they were bright orange and almost duck-like. Pak’s voice emerged from the bottom of the trench coat, “Guys, no time to be dancing! We found Captain Mud who’d crawled in from the vents, and he offered this trench coat to disguise him. Uh, could you help us get to the Beanstar?”  
Kan squirmed around in Tir’s arms as she danced with him. She carried him past his three friends. “Help, help! I’m being oppressed!” Kan proclaimed  
“Yar!” Captain Mud roared from within the trench coat. “Ye best leave me crew alone, filthy witch, ‘fore ye get toasted by me hot, fiery rage!”  
“Alright then,” Tir agreed. She exchanged partners with a young Beanish woman. The Beanish took Kan in her arms and danced with him merrily.  
Kan, meanwhile, was desperately struggling to get out of the celebratory dance. “I don’t wanna get jiggy with it!” he cried.  
“Holy crap,” Rok awed quietly, “he’s gettin’ jiggy, and he doesn’t even like it. Takes guts.” The Koopa raised his voice. “Just gotta endure, man! Ride the emotion like a mighty wave!”  
“I’m drowning!” Kan wailed before he was taken by the wave of dancers. He’d quickly vanished from sight.  
With a smirk, Tir walked over towards the Beanstar past the three other members of their crew. She struck her two bracelets against one another, and from the accessories flew a spark. The spark flew between a small, barely noticeable crack in the trench coat and landed on Pak’s fuse. The Shy Gal continued to leisurely walk towards the Beanstar.  
“After her, ye round, white-eyed buffoon!” ordered their captain.  
“Uh, where do I walk again?” Pak asked.  
“To the right,” Rok suggested.  
Pak took his first few steps. Then he took a whiff of air. “Say, is something burning?”  
Smoke began to rise from within the trench coat. Captain Mud watched the smoke travel through the closed space. “Huh, smells like me mother’s cookin’,” he reminisced.  
“Your mom used to hotbox?” Rok asked.  
“Guys,” the Bob-omb began to pant, “it’s hot. Is it hot to anyone else, or is that just me? I don’t feel good.”  
Captain Mud looked down and saw Pak’s fuse burning away by the second. “Yar! Pak! Ye’ve been lit ablaze!”  
Rok looked straight ahead. “Ah, crap-baskets.” In an instant, Pak exploded. Smoke filled the area as Captain Mud, Pak, and Rok all flew across the ballroom.   
The rich dancers all began to panic from the sound of an explosion. “It’s a terrorist attack!” one of the Beanish declared before he rushed off with the rest of the panicking crowd. “We’re all surely dead if we stay here!”  
Kan was trampled by the fleeing citizens. “Ow, ow, ow, ow, ooh my face.”  
From the air vent above the Beanstar, a familiar Koopa’s voice cried, “Now!” Paraplonk, through the smoke and fleeing citizens, burst through the vent and swooped towards the mystical relic.  
He was stopped abruptly by Tir’s fist, which connected to his gut. The winged Paratroopa was launched into the wall behind the Beanstar. Private Goomp descended headfirst from the same vent shortly thereafter and bonked Tir over the head with his own. Tir stumbled back. Sergeant Guy, flag in hand, fell down towards the Beanstar.  
Without warning or explanation, the opposite wall from the Beanstar exploded into bits of rock and rubble. Holding his Bill Blaster close, Cag climbed through the new hole. Running towards the Beanstar, the black Shy Guy shot his weapon at Sergeant Guy. “I did not come this far just to be robbed by someone else!”  
The Bullet Bill rushed through the air. Sergeant Guy grabbed the Beanstar and hopped out of the way, only to be roundhouse kicked by Tir. As the Bullet Bill exploded behind them, Cag wielded the Bill Blaster as a two-handed melee weapon and smacked Tir across the head with it.  
Tir didn’t move. She grabbed onto the blaster—Cag tried to yank it from her grip to no avail—and spun around in a few circles before tossing the blaster and Cag onto Sergeant Guy, who collapsed under the weight of his apparent foes. The green Shy Guy dropped the Beanstar from his hands, but Paraplonk swooped down from below and swiped it on his behalf. “With this, even Bowser’s gonna kneel before us!”  
Kan emerged from his delirious state. Captain Mud had rebuilt himself. Rok was a bit injured, but he would be fine. Pak had been rendered completely out of commission by his own explosion.  
Captain Mud unsheathed his swords. “Mutiny,” he growled. “I knew from the moment me eyes saw her that she was a traitor waitin’ to happen!” The undead captain charged forward to Corporal Paraplonk. Mud threw one of his curved swords through the air, and the hilt of the blade impacted against Corporal Paraplonk’s forehead. The Beanstar fell from his grip.  
Tir leapt into the air and grasped the descending Beanstar, but she was quickly tackled by Rok. “Why, bro?” Rok asked. “We were rad! We were bros, bro!”  
Tir seemed taken off guard for a moment by Rok’s sincere disbelief. “Th-That’s...”   
A Bullet Bill hurtled towards them and exploded upon impact. The blast had knocked the Beanstar out of Tir’s hands, but the two of them hadn't sustained serious damage. Cag caught the Beanstar as it landed. “This is a pretty explosive turn of events. Get it? Explosive?” The black Shy Guy laughed at his own joke.  
Kan tackled Cag to the ground. The two of them tumbled across the floor as they wrestled. Kan emerged on top and pried at the Beanstar from Cag’s hands, but the black Shy Guy persisted. “Your puns are terrible!” Kan insulted. “You could find better material in a joke book!”  
“You take that back!” Cag shouted, offended. “My sense of humor is far too complicated for any of you morons to understand!”  
“Banzaaiii!” Private Goomp shouted above the two scuffling guys before crashing towards Kan from above.  
Captain Mud, however, intervened. Using one of his ribs as a projectile weapon, he tossed his bone at the falling Goomba. Goomp had been knocked out of the air, and fell harmlessly alongside Kan. “Be on the alert!” shouted Captain Mud, blocking a kick from Tir by crossing both his swords over himself in an X shape. “Ye traitorous witch! I should've known ye’d be up to no good! Tryin’ to steal me treasure all for yerself, is that it?” the Dry Bones demanded. “Is it, ye overgrown siren?”  
“You wouldn’t understand,” Tir growled.  
As they clashed, Rok’s shell hurtled towards the Shy Gal from the side. Tir grabbed Rok’s shell and slammed it against Captain Mud’s head.  
Still tackled to the ground, Cag released the Beanstar from his grip with a smirk. Kan held the artifact triumphantly. Cag pressed his Bill Blaster against Kan’s chest. “So long, guy!” he shouted. The Bullet Bill rocketed into Kan and sent him launching out the very hole whence Cag came.   
Kan fell outside the tall building, and landed on his back in the flying Scurvy Scumbag’s main deck. Perhaps its elevation was how Cag had gotten up through the hole. He’d most likely intended to steal their ship and leave with it this time. Sore, Kan stared up at the hole in the building. Everyone was wrestling over the Beanstar. Their entire conflict seemed like a frantic game of keepaway.  
The Shy Guy looked at the cannons. The button with an anchor on it stood proudly. Kan’s genius brain hatched an idea. “I am a legend for thinking of this,” he thought aloud. The injured yet determined guy stood up from his place on the main deck’s floor and walked towards the button. He pressed it. Out flew the anchor towards the building within.  
Holding the Beanstar, Rok stood protectively over the dazed Pak. “You’re not gettin’ this Beanstar or my bro, bro!” he shouted to Cag, who approached them slowly.  
“Oh yeah?” the black Shy Guy asked. “And who’s going to stop me?” The anchor smashed against Cag and knocked him across the room. He’d been buried underneath the massive thing. The anchor’s chain now connected the Scurvy Scumbag to the building. Cag squirmed around like a relentless cockroach. “How dare you fools stop me? Don’t you know who I am? I’m Cag! The mystical and fabled Command-a-Guy!”  
“Huh,” Rok began, “so that’s where his name comes from.”  
To rip him from his pondering, Tir rushed towards Rok. The Koopa yelped in fear. Suddenly, he heard a voice shouting over him. “Throw ‘er here!” Captain Mud beckoned. The Koopa tossed the Beanstar over Tir, who jumped to reach for it. She was intercepted by Sergeant Guy, who’d come flying above even her to swipe at it. However, it stumbled from the green Shy Guy’s tiny hands, and landed towards Captain Mud who caught it firmly in his skeletal hands. Rushing towards the chain, he shouted, “Follow me, mateys!”  
Rok grabbed his confused Bob-omb friend and bolted after Captain Mud. “Aw man, aw geez, aw man.” The two of them ran across the anchor’s chain.  
“Come back here!” Tir shouted, almost with desperation in her voice. She ran alongside Captain Mud and struck at him. He jumped above the attack and continued his retreat.   
Kan saw the two of them sprinting towards the Scurvy Scumbag from across the chain. “Time to retract this thing. Here, puppy!” He pressed the same button again, and the anchor flew towards the flying ship.  
Corporal Paraplonk flew towards them as well and tried to intercept Tir’s ongoing assault, but was met with an immediate fist to his face as she ran. He was thrown across the area. Private Goomp charged towards Captain Mud, who smacked him with the hilt of his blade and sent him tumbling on the floor. The undead captain ducked to evade a kick from Tir. Sergeant Guy threw his flag at Captain Mud like a javelin, but it was caught by Rok, who tossed it back at Tir. Tir grabbed the flag in midair and stabbed its pointed end repeatedly at Captain Mud, who dodged two swipes before blocking a third and fourth with his blade. Sergeant Guy was nearly upon them now, but Tir threw the flag back at the green Shy Guy. The pointed flag caught Sergeant Guy by the hood and pinned him against a wall. He squirmed around defiantly, but to no avail. Captain Mud struggled to fight off Tir from getting on the chain.  
Thankfully, the anchor carrying the undead captain and Rok had retracted through the hole Cag had created in his entrance. The chain dangled on the ship as Kan tried his best to sail the massive, flying boat away from the building. “Uh, how do you fly one of these?” Kan wondered.  
Tir stared after Rok, Captain Mud, and Pak as they escaped with the Beanstar. She put her hand on the ruined wall. Rok simply saluted her with two fingers as the anchor dangled to and fro. She watched Captain Mud use Rok as a means to propel himself up to the main deck and assist his friends on their climb aboard. The Shy Gal clenched her fists until her knuckles were white.  
Tears rolled down the Shy Gal's mask in a frustrated sorrow. Through her despair, Tir choked out, "I guess I won't be able to bring you back after all, Sis..."


	10. Shed a Tir

Tir was an extraordinary Shy Gal. Oh, no, she wasn’t anything like other Shy Gals. Her birthright was to live a remarkable life filled with highs and lows, and this very destiny fulfilled itself time and again.  
“Tir!” her sister had said as she ran to their favorite park by her side. “I’ll race you to that tree at the very end and back!”  
“You can’t start running and then mention the race, that’s not how races work!” Tir shouted angrily. “Kim, you can be such a cheater!” Tir chased after Kim, the blue Shy Gal. Kim’s brunette hair flowed in the breeze.  
Of course, Kim got to the tree first, but Tir was very close behind despite the unfair advantage her sister had. “Wow,” Kim remarked, “you’re a really fast runner. You’re pretty extraordinary, you know that?”  
“Yeah,” Tir admitted, “everyone seems to think that. Though I’m not sure why. I feel pretty regular, you know? I feel just like everyone else.”  
“Yeah, but what’s ‘regular’? What’s ‘normal’?” Kim wondered as she sat underneath the trunk of the tree on the soft, green grass. “How do you know? Perhaps your incredible life could be absolutely ordinary for you. To yourself, you’re just an ordinary Shy Gal. But to someone else, from the outside looking in, you’re pretty extraordinary!”  
“Huh...” Tir reflected on this for a few moments. “You’re right. I never really thought about that. Maybe I am extraordinary.”  
“We have to steal to survive,” her starving sister admitted gloomily underneath a flickering streetlamp. The alleyway was cold and unforgiving, just like the world that had cursed them to live this miserable life. Could one even call it living? Was this all that being alive was?  
“I wish it wasn’t like this,” Tir lamented as tears dripped down her face, though she didn’t sob through her words. “If our parents hadn't thrown us out... why would they do that to us? What did we do to them?”  
“I don’t think we did anything,” Kim responded with a faint smile. “It’s going to be okay. I have faith in you. You’re extraordinary, after all, right? Let’s try and get ourselves some dinner.”  
“The people of Isle Delfino are pretty easily deceived; I could probably swipe a few meals for the day.”  
“I’ll keep applying for nice, stable jobs.” Kim nodded. “We can do this, Tir, even without their help. In the meantime, you’ll just have to keep trying to make ends meet. I’m so sorry that I have to ask you to do this.”  
“For someone as extraordinary as me, this will be a piece of cake,” Tir reassured her sister with a false grin. Kim had believed her then.  
Tir had stolen every penny she could as soon as she learned that Kim had fallen ill. The two lived in an abandoned shack that was crawling with insects and disease. It was a roof over their heads. The beds that Kim and Tir had were dusty and uncomfortable, but they could manage. They could survive. They had to survive for one day longer. At least, that had been the plan.  
“I’ll keep saving up,” Tir promised Kim who lay sickly in her bed.  
Kim smiled again at Tir and said the same things that she had always said: “I believe in you. You can do anything you put your mind to, Tir. You’re extraordinary. It’ll be okay. We’ll make it out of here somehow.”  
“You’re right,” Tir tried to believe as she held onto Kim’s weak hand. Tir stared at Kim’s features, softly lit through the moonlight pouring from the overhead window. “I don’t know how, but I’ll make everything right. We’ll be happy.” Tir felt herself crying again. Just like always, she wouldn’t audibly sob. “Somehow, somehow, we’ll be okay.”  
Kim rested her head against her pillow. “I had a wonderful interview the other day. Maybe if I wasn’t so sick, I could actually go in for work. It’s funny. I get so close to getting hired and then this happens. That’s kind of a setback, huh?” she laughed quietly before her hand instinctively gripped at her chest. She stopped breathing and her body tensed up.  
“Kim!” Tir exclaimed. She held Kim in her arms and put her fingers up to her sister’s neck. Tir felt for a pulse. She felt it. Kim’s heart was beating. Kim remained tense despite this. Tir tried desperately to analyze the situation, figure out anything that was wrong, anything that she could do. In her desperate search, Kim let out a long exhale and her body relaxed. She was breathing normally again.  
“Sorry,” Kim croaked out. “It hurts—my chest.”  
“I’ll keep saving up,” Tir repeated, more to herself than to her sister. “I’ll keep saving up. We’ll get you some treatment and you’ll make the recovery of the century. Then who’s gonna look extraordinary, huh?”  
“You,” Kim said as she rested her pointer finger on Tir’s forehead. “You’re gonna be the one who gets me out of this mess, heh.”  
“I’ll do the best I can...” Tir affirmed gloomily.  
“She’s not going to make it,” a doctor told Tir in a dimly lit waiting room. Kim lay weakly in a hospital bed behind a large, glass window. The doctor bowed his head sorrowfully. “I’m sorry.”  
“Isn’t there something you can do?” Tir asked desperately. “Can’t you give her surgery or medicine... anything?”  
“We have tried everything we could think of,” responded the forlorn man as he looked at Kim’s half-asleep form. “It won’t be long now. I’m very, very sorry. Do you want to talk to Kim now while you can? She doesn’t have much longer.”  
“How long does she have?” Tir pressed. “Months? Weeks?”  
“Days,” he answered.  
Tir felt her heart stop. She wasn’t sure what to do with this information at first. She didn’t react the way she thought she would. Honestly, Tir had seen this coming. But now that it was presented before her, she didn’t feel sad or shocked or angry. She felt like this was a fact of life. This was ordinary.  
“Oh, okay,” Tir responded in a surprisingly calm voice. “I guess I’ll just... stay with her for the next few nights then, yeah?”  
“Of course, you’re welcome to stay by her side for as long as you want,” the man responded.  
Tir walked past him and into Kim’s room. Kim looked pitiful—miserable. “Tir?” Kim asked drowsily. “Is that you? My heart was hurting earlier. I was waiting for someone to hold my hand, but you weren’t around.” Kim outstretched her hand and reached towards Tir. “Can you, please?”  
Tir walked beside Kim’s bed. Tir felt herself crying once more. Again, she did not let out any signs or indications of her tears. She held Kim’s hand and smiled. “It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be just fine, I promise. I’ll be here from now until the end. You’ll be okay.”  
Kim seemed to relax when she felt Tir holding her hand. She leaned into the cushions of her bed. “That’s nice to hear; I’m relieved,” Kim said. “When will the pain go away?”  
“In a few days,” Tir responded hopefully. “That’s what I was told, anyway.”  
“Thank goodness,” Kim said. She seemed so grateful to hear that. She smiled, again. Kim always found a way to smile. “I’m so glad that you’re with me, Tir. You’ve always been extraordinary, haven’t you?”  
Soon, Kim’s body began to fade away. Her legs vanished first, then her torso, then her mask. Nothing of the blue Shy Gal remained.  
Tir stood in the ballroom and watched after the Scurvy Scumbag. It flew away with her only chance of bringing back her sister, Kim. Tir had worked her way up from nothing, only for the last of her family to die. What meaningless existence was she leading? Tir wasn’t extraordinary at all. She felt that Kim was wrong. I’m a failure, Tir thought. I’m just a failure.  
Tir thought about Kan. She thought about Pak, then Rok, and even Captain Mud. She remembered the smile that her sister Kim always wore. I betrayed them to see her smile again, Tir thought to herself. There’s no other way it would happen. She was fine if I stole for her. She was fine when I tried to treat her with stolen money. Why would Kim mind if I betrayed a few of my friends?  
The Shy Gal’s gaze fell down to the earth. What’s ordinary? Kan, an ordinary Shy Guy, escaped with the Beanstar. He was an ordinary, regular guy. Yet, somehow, he managed to pull it off. How?  
Kim put her hand on Tir’s shoulder and smiled at her. “What’s ‘regular’? What’s ‘normal’? He probably felt the same way you did, you know?”  
“You always find some way to smile, even after everything that you’ve been through,” Tir said. Tears silently fell down her face. “How do you do it? How do you always manage to smile?”  
Kim didn’t answer. She held the smile on her face as it lit the darkness in Tir’s soul. “You didn’t lose your family. You never lost it. As soon as you found them, couldn’t you feel yourself become whole again?”  
Tir turned to stare behind her. All that met her gaze was the opulent chandelier hanging delicately over the disheveled ballroom. She blinked and then averted her gaze. The Shy Gal looked after where the Scurvy Scumbag had sailed off not-too-long ago. “You know, you’re right, sis. I guess those losers really did mean something to me. I’m glad that you were here to steer me right.” Tir stood firmly at the hole that had been blasted into the wall by Cag’s Bill Blaster. “I’ll get back what I lost, one way or another. This time, I won’t shed a tear.”


	11. Treasure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happens in this fan fiction. This whole endeavor is, like this specific chapter, entirely regular. You are permitted to stop reading. Look away. No, really. There's no more story. What? You're still reading? Oh, my. I hadn't thought this far ahead. Here, I'll write another chapter for you and we'll call it even.

“Wrow,” Kan thought aloud as he and his companions sailed through the air on the Scurvy Scumbag. “I can’t believe that Tir was actually a traitor. I thought better of her, honestly.”  
Pak stared off the deck towards the darkening clouds over the horizon. “I wonder what her motive was. I wish she hadn't turned out to be that way. I really liked her.”  
Rok walked up to his Bob-omb friend and patted him on the back. “Women, am I right?”   
Captain Mud began steering the ship downward through the thick, menacing clouds. Past those clouds was a land devoid of vegetation. The rocky, barren wasteland was covered in a thick fog. Amidst the wasteland was a ruined, ancient kingdom. A massive, broken castle missing the roofs of its towers, littered with holes, lay waiting below them. The Dry Bones stated grimly, “We almost be at our next destination, me boyos. Thar be one final piece o' treasure we need.”  
“The Power Moon,” Kan concurred with a nod. “But why do we have to go here? To me, it doesn’t look like anyone’s even around; it’s completely abandoned. Are you sure the Power Moon is actually here?”  
“Sure as I be made of bones,” their dead captain confirmed lowly. “But this be unlike anything we’ve seen thus far. Nay, this be far worse.”  
Pak began to feel himself shiver with trepidation. “Worse?” his voice quivered out. “Far worse? Wait a minute, this place—that castle, this broken-down kingdom, the deserted population...”  
“Yo...” Rok awed as he and Kan both gazed around the descending ship’s new destination. “With all of that, this means that we’re at...”  
“The Ruined Kingdom,” Captain Mud finished, “otherwise known as Crumbleden. The only thing livin' in these parts be bats and an ancient beast that was bested by a hero not so long ago. However, it weren’t permanently put to rest. It was only tired. For all we know, it’s already had its nap. We’d best hope it still be a-slumberin’, lest we be vanquished by its malicious lightning breath.”   
“B-But, where in this city is the treasure?” Kan stuttered out. “We don’t even know where to look!”  
“Oh, yes we do, lads,” their captain said as their ship approached its landing point through the broken roof of the old castle. Below them, unconscious on the cracked stone flooring, was a massive, black dragon. Its wings rested on its back. Its breathing was low and deep. Its breaths were few and far between. Its eyes rested peacefully. In front of its nose was a golden Power Moon, radiating some sort of divinity.  
Kan stared at the Power Moon in awe. “Whoa. I remember some old guy using those to send people back to their own worlds.”  
“Ugh,” Rok groaned as their ship gently landed in front of the sleeping dragon. “That reminds me of my old job that I had. I was there in that incident. I worked as a part-timer in a shop. Some purple cat barged into my shop and stole one of our Fire Flowers as everything was collapsing. I’m never taking a job from them again, yo.”  
“Uh, guys,” Pak started, “can we swipe the Power Moon so we can unseal the treasure? As long as we don’t wake the dragon, this one seems pretty straightforward. It’ll be easy!”  
“Aye,” Captain Mud smirked as he made his way off the ship. “Very easy.” He chuckled quietly to himself as he readied the bag containing the other two treasures and carried them with him on his way to the great atrocity.  
Kan looked at Captain Mud and then to Rok. The Shy Guy and Koopa shared a shrug and followed after their leader. Pak waddled merrily after them and quietly hummed a happy tune.  
The Dry Bones stood in front of the sleeping dragon and then looked at the Power Moon. It shone brightly and lit his bones with its illumination. “Finally,” he muttered. Captain Mud snatched the glittering Power Moon from underneath the lethargic, colossal monster’s nose. He beamed a happy, toothy smile. “Alright, lads, we’ve got it. D'ye know what comes next?”  
“Nope,” Rok stated.  
“We party!” Pak offered. “We party like we’re hearty!”  
“To be fair,” Kan began as he scratched the back of his head, “you’re the one who instigated this whole adventure in the first place. None of us know where the great treasure is even sealed.”  
“Heheh...” The undead captain held all three of their legendary artifacts in his bony hands. “Hehehah!” He threw his head back and cackled as the Power Moon, Shine Sprite, and Beanstar began to ascend from his hands and spiral around each other in a dance. “Yarharharhar-haaaack! Hear me, O’ powerful artifacts! Awaken this divine atrocity under my rule, so I may conquer all the world! Beyond the seas and land, past the skies above, Captain Mud shall rule over all!”  
Kan felt his gut drop. He looked frantically from the artifacts to Captain Mud, then to his crewmates, and then at his own hands. “Wait-wait-wait, but I—I thought that—the treasure—”  
“Thar be no treasure, ye dunderheaded hooligans!” Captain Mud retorted viciously. “The only treasure be the one what was sleepin’ behind me shell! But now...” The evil pirate turned around. The Ruined Dragon opened one of its yellow eyes. Its crown had been resting in one of its massive, clawed hands. It slowly gripped its sign of power and sluggishly put it atop its head. The Ruined Dragon slammed its other hand on the cracked stone ground beneath them, and the rickety castle trembled underneath its force. It pushed itself up and arose from its long slumber. The dragon roared. “Now she be wide awake, me boyos! And I am the one who shall rule her, alongside this world!”  
Kan stared at Captain Mud in disbelief. “You played us for fools this whole time...”  
“I didn’t have to play ye,” the Dry Bones reported curtly. “Ye were all fools to begin with!”  
The Shy Guy beheld the gargantuan figure. It looked big enough to cover the skies. This horrifying winged death-bringer was far larger than anything he’d ever seen. “Uh, guys,” said Kan as sweat began to trickle down his mask, “I think we’re in way over our heads here.”  
Pak gazed at the beast fearfully, and with a trembling voice began to rapidly recite facts about it. “Dragons-took-a-malevolent-interpretation-in-western-cultures-after-humans-related-dragons-to-other-malevolent-figures-found-in-religions. Dragons-were-known-to-bring-good-fortune-in-eastern-cultures, however, and-were-admired-as-saints-which-gave-its-people-water-after-long-droughts.”   
Staring at the kingly beast, Rok lightly smacked his Bob-omb from upside the head. “B-Bud, not now. I think this is the last time we’ll get to say this to each other, so I just want you to know: Buddy, man, I love you.”  
“I-love-you-too,” Pak trembled out.  
“Yarharhar-haaaack!” Captain Mud cackled before his baffled ex-crewmates.   
The beast looked down at the cackling pirate. It uttered out one word in an earth-rattling voice, deep and loud: “Annoyance.”  
“Huh?” stammered Captain Mud, gazing up at the creature. “Oh, aye! Ye mean them! They be quite an annoyin' bunch!”  
“We’re annoying?” Kan inquired with an offended hand on his chest. “Why, I never!”  
The Ruined Dragon drew back its clawed hand and then crushed Captain Mud underneath the weight of its palm. The castle shook and rattled. Bats squealed from the disturbance and flew off into the skies. The Power Moon, Shine Sprite, and Beanstar, still glowing with energy, descended down from above. “To think that such an imbecile thought he could take control of me. What a joke.” The dragon chuckled deeply. “That was the first laugh I’ve gotten in decades.”  
“Captain Mud!” Pak shouted. “No!”  
“Why do you care?” Kan asked begrudgingly. “He was a weasel until the very end...”  
The great beast took notice of them. “Hm? What’s this? A small group of sacrifices seem to have been brought to me as an offering. How touching.”  
“Uh,” Rok muttered to Kan, “I’ve got a plan. I think I know how we’re gonna get outta here alive.”  
“How?” Kan whispered back. “This is the first and last time I’ll have any faith in your intelligence.”  
“Don’t worry, Rok,” Pak encouraged his friend. “I believe in you.”  
“We could wish ourselves a way to defeat it with the Beanstar,” Rok suggested. “Or we could wish it away entirely.”  
“Nice idea, I’m impressed,” Kan whispered back.  
Nabbit suddenly sprang onto the edge of the broken castle before the three of them and the beast. He zoomed past the Ruined Dragon and bagged the three artifacts in front of the trio. “Yoinkaroonie.” The purple rabbit darted away with their only chance of making it out of this conflict alive.  
“Where did he come from?” Pak wondered aloud.  
“Well, great,” Kan thought aloud. “Now how are we going to slay the dragon?”  
“I’m sorry,” the dragon said as he towered above them all. “What is it you wanted to do? Slay me?”  
Rok grabbed Kan’s shoulders and put his face against the guy’s mask. “RUN!” Rok shouted.  
Kan nearly tripped over his own two feet while running away from the massive dragon. Rok snatched up Pak and ran after the Shy Guy. Coincidentally, they were running after Nabbit, who was still bolting away with their things. Nabbit turned around to see the dragon and the trio chasing him. He dug into his pack and let loose a stream of Bob-ombs.   
Pak stared in horror as his brethren were used as mere ammunition. “That monster...” he muttered spitefully.  
The Ruined Dragon unleashed an expanding disk of lightning that rolled towards them. As it approached, the projectile split into three disks and began to swerve around each other. They each targeted specific members of the trio. Kan shrieked like a little girl. The Bob-ombs ahead of them all began erupting; they had presumably been paid to be used as explosives. Kan fearfully fled the explosions as best he could, but it couldn’t last. One of them blasted him a short ways into the air.   
He fell foot-first atop Rok, who was still holding Pak. Rok withdrew into his shell. Pak was dropped in the process, but Kan grabbed him and held him in his arms. Kan stumbled on Rok’s shell in his desperate mission to flee. He continued to run, which turned Rok’s shell around and around in correspondence. They somehow were still making progress chasing after Nabbit while simultaneously running away from the Ruined Dragon. Evading yet more explosives and electric disks of death behind them by chance, Pak screamed for dear life as he was nearly dropped time and again by Kan’s fumbling stub-hands.  
As Kan and friends avoided the disks of electricity, the projectiles illogically cut through rubble and ruins that stood in their paths. Nabbit used a split opening through a large statue of a knight to continue fleeing his pursuers.  
Kan nearly fell off of Rok’s shell as he bolted after the purple bunny. Rok’s shell bounced off either half of the statue as Kan desperately tried to make his way through. Kan fell off Rok and dropped Pak in the process. Pak was screaming the entire time. “Aaaaaah!”  
Rok emerged from his shell in a daze, yet he continued to run despite the world spinning around him. Almost drunkenly, he somehow stumbled in the right direction to allow Pak to fall into his arms. Kan used Rok’s body to keep himself on his own two feet before continuing his chase.   
The Ruined Dragon’s shadow loomed above them all. The tiny little Shy Guy looked up above him. The beast held lightning in its mouth. It roared as it shot bolts of concentrated electricity down upon the trio. Rok stumbled into the path of a lightning strike, but Kan fearfully yanked him out of harm’s way. Nabbit was unaffected as the lightning struck the ground near him and tore apart the already wasted landscape.  
Looming leisurely over the little looneys in all his lengthy lot, the lethargic lizard lavishly lavaged them all in luminous lightning. The Shy Guy and his friends were barely capable of dodging as the lightning bolts struck mere inches near their feet. Somehow, they weren’t dead.  
The Ruined Dragon dive-bombed towards the earth and thunderously crashed in front of Nabbit, Kan, Pak, and Rok. Nabbit screeched to a halt as he stared at the massive beast. Kan screamed, Rok howled, and Pak nearly cried. The Ruined Dragon spoke again, “You’ve been fun sheep to chase, but it ends now. Do you have anything you would like to say before you die?”  
Pak looked at the Beanstar and back to the Ruined Dragon. The little Bob-omb took in a breath of air. Then, familiarly, Pak felt a switch go off in his mind. Something clicked or, rather, snapped. He wasn’t sure which. “I wish to explode.”  
Kan looked at Pak. Rok stared at Pak in horror. The Koopa uttered out in the pinnacle of dismay: “What have you done?”   
The Beanstar heard Pak’s voice and deemed it, apparently, pure. It awoke from its long slumber.  
Nabbit stared at the Bob-omb as the Beanstar, Shine Sprite, and Power Moon tore themselves from his bag. The purple rabbit desperately tried to grab them again, but it was no use. They were pulled towards the one who had summoned their power: Pak the Bob-omb. Pak continued, “I wish to explode like no Bob-omb has ever exploded before.”  
“We have to get out of here,” Rok stated.  
“I agree,” Kan hesitantly began as he side-stepped away from the Bob-omb. The Shine Sprite, Power Moon and Beanstar began to orbit around Pak at a faster and faster pace. “I don’t want to stick around for this, so let’s—”  
“We have to get out of here!” repeated Rok, horrified. He ran away as fast as his Koopa legs could carry him, and Kan scurried after him desperately. The Shy Guy and Koopa screamed through their every step.   
Pak began to ascend into the air as the magical artifacts filled him with their power. A golden aura of energy began to emanate from the Bob-omb as he shone through the thick fog like a lantern to lost travelers.  
The Koopa and the Shy Guy ran towards the ruined castle. “There!” Rok shouted. “Shelter, we need to get to the basement!” Kan was amazed at how serious his Koopa friend sounded about this. “Don’t look at the light, you’ll go blind! Normally, we would have to be at least ten miles away to at least suffer first to third degree burns, but we’d live! I know we don’t have much, but it’s something!”  
The two of them rushed inside the castle and desperately sprinted towards the basement—whatever makeshift bomb-shelter they could put together.  
Kan looked at Rok as they took cover and asked, “Will Pak be alright?”  
“I’m not too sure, dude,” Rok sorrowfully admitted. “Whenever Pak explodes, it always leaves him dazed. He’s gonna seriously explode this time! Who knows how he’ll manage?”  
Pak had ascended and floated before the Ruined Dragon. The three legendary artifacts warped around the Bob-omb’s glowing form. Pak was glaring angrily at the Ruined Dragon as his lit fuse grew shorter by the second. The ground trembled, as though the world lay in fearful anticipation of Pak’s eruption. The Ruined Dragon stood petrified in disbelief at the small, previously insignificant Bob-omb. Pak stared into the dragon’s yellow eyes and said, “Goodbye, everyone.”  
The Ruined Dragon never saw the flash of blinding light piercing through the sky and earth. The sound of the blast pierced through the ears of anyone who could have been listening: Kan and Rok were still alive to hear it go off and were kept safe in the basement’s protection. The earth was actively facing ruin and being obliterated against the detonation’s wrath. The Ruined Dragon roared in pain as its body was wrought with flames and force, far too powerful for it to bear. It yelled and yelled and writhed in the agony of the hot, expanding ocean of fire. Pak felt himself losing touch of where he was as he exploded. In the infernal ball which touched the heavens, he smiled, knowing that he’d truly gotten his deepest wish. Through the roar of the blast, over the pained cries of the beast caught in death, Pak stated calmly to himself, “I’ve always found it fascinating that the whole of the universe was dawned from an explosion.” Pak closed his eyes and let himself fall asleep.  
Once the explosion had cleared, the Ruined Dragon lay defeated. The castle had been nearly blown to pieces. Only a few distinguishing features remained which could have indicated that there was once a castle there. Kan emerged from the rubble. He coughed and brushed the dust off of his red hood. Rok pushed a light pile of broken stone off him and stood up to his feet. The Koopa stared off through the destruction towards the Ruined Dragon. There was no sign of Pak.  
Rok looked down. Kan, searching for Pak, simply couldn’t spot him either. The dragon was defeated beyond redemption. There was no way that the beast would come back. Kan stepped towards the Ruined Dragon. “What did it cost?” he asked himself.  
“Yo,” Rok choked out as his eyes watered up, “I’m gonna cry...”  
Kan held his Koopa friend as Rok burst into tears on his shoulder. The Shy Guy looked toward the Scurvy Scumbag as he held Rok. “Do you think this is because of our greed? Should we try to be good cookies instead of bad ones?”  
“Hey,” another familiar voice called. “I felt bad about earlier...”  
Kan and Rok turned toward familiar voice. Kan uttered out quietly, “Is that...”  
Tir emerged from the rubble ahead of them. The Shy Gal held Pak’s body in her arms. He was covered in scorch marks and dust, but he was presented before them, eyes closed. A grim smile softly tugged at Tir’s lips as she approached. “Sorry. I’m really sorry about what I did to you guys. You really care about each other. I just...”  
“It’s okay,” Kan stated as he approached her.   
Rok slowly made his way towards Pak in Tir’s arms, never taking his eyes off his dear friend. “Bud... You did it, yo...”  
“I betrayed you because I lost someone once,” Tir explained quietly as she stared at Pak. “I wanted to use the Beanstar to bring them back. She was family—my sister. I wanted to follow you to get the Beanstar back from you again, but... I ended up following after you because I believe you’re all my family now.”  
“Aw, shucks...” Kan stated, sorrowfully. “I’d be all flattered right now. I’m sure he’d really appreciate it too.”  
“Yeah,” Rok sniffed, “he’d love to hear you say that. He really liked you, you know? He liked all of us, but, like, he dug you.”  
Pak coughed quietly as dust sprinkled off of his body. “I was... supposed to tell her that I dug her, man. But it’s okay, we’re still cool—”  
All three of them exclaimed simultaneously, “Pak!”  
Kan shouted, “You’re alive! Oh thank the stars, I was seriously worried about you!”  
Rok rushed in and picked up his Bob-omb friend from Tir’s arms and embraced him. The Koopa held Pak as close to him as he could. “Dude! Holy crud, I thought that you were a goner! I’m so proud of you; that explosion was awesome! I thought it was gonna go off like a nuke! You’re alive, bro! You’re alive!”  
Pak blinked and looked around from Tir to Kan and then to Rok. “Wait, I’m not dead? Shoot, man, I thought my games were over...”  
“Hey,” Kan began, “Let’s just get you somewhere safe. You need to recuperate...”  
“Yeah,” Pak said weakly while looking happily at his three friends who cared for him so deeply. “I think I need a break, guys.”  
“Hey,” Rok realized, “Pak... you’re not dazed!”  
Pak blinked twice. He seemed so proud of himself. “Yeah! I guess miracles really do happen, huh? I really do treasure you guys...”


	12. Slightly Less Ordinary Yet Still Regular Overall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, Kan, what have we learned?

Kan was an ordinary Shy Guy who had been through some pretty extraordinary things. The Shy Guy sat on the Scurvy Scumbag, which sailed through the skies, and waited to arrive at an old destination: his very own little hut. He had dearly missed his Shy Guy flag after everything. Now that Captain Mud was gone, there was no incentive to continue adventuring. Well, there wasn’t any incentive for him anyway.  
Pak simply lay on his back on the deck next to Rok, whose folded arms he used as a makeshift pillow. They were both staring at the clear, blue sky above the clouds. “Yo, can you believe we survived that encounter with the Ruined Dragon?” Rok asked Pak.   
“No,” Kan said simply on Pak’s behalf. “To be honest, I’m amazed that we’re still here having this conversation.”  
“That was something that took a whole unit of Mario to bring down,” Pak added, “and all of us put together do not equal one unit of Mario.”  
Tir had been staring off into the clouds on the edge of the Scurvy Scumbag’s deck. She slowly left her place and headed towards Pak and Rok. She lifted up the Bob-omb and gave him a hug. “I’m glad that everyone’s okay. Even if we don’t equate to a single unit of Mario, we sure do make a great team. You three found a way to defeat the Ruined Dragon and Nabbit all by yourselves. I’m really proud of you guys.”  
Two little pink circles of blush dotted Pak’s cheeks as he rested in Tir’s arms. The Bob-omb closed his eyes and relaxed and let out a contented, though incredibly strange noise. “Nyeghhhh...”  
Kan looked at Tir and said, “You are an atom bomb.”  
“Excuse me?” she asked.  
“Yo,” Rok began, “dude’s right. You beat up that one giant robot-like it was nothing, man. You totally trashed its can, and now it’s nothin’ but trash. You could have taken that Ruined Dragon down by yourself, probably.”  
“No,” Tir said plainly. “I wouldn’t have stood a chance. I was hiding until I knew it was safe to come out. I was afraid.”  
There was a moment of silence. Everyone stared at Tir. Even Pak seemed to be filled with disbelief. Pak stated with authority in his voice, “Put me down.” Tir set Pak down on the ground. The Bob-omb turned around to face Tir and said, “Do you know who you are? You sent Cag flying off this very ship with a single punch!”  
“You were One-Punch Gal!” Rok shouted.  
Kan nodded in agreement as their ship approached Toadburg. “Even when Sergeant Guy had that huge Megahammer, he was still afraid of you. You put the fear of God into that boy’s soul.”  
“To be honest,” Pak continued, “when you turned against us at first, we thought that our ace in the hole was gone! You were the strongest in our whole entire group—the woman who could take down anything! And now you have the nerve to tell me that you were afraid?”  
“Giant robots are one thing,” Tir explained, “but a mushroom-flailin’ dragon is a bit much for me.”  
Kan, being entirely regular, felt that someone who was so extraordinary could even feel the emotion called fear was the most irregular thing that he would ever see. Not being able to make sense of the situation, all he could do was puzzle over it until the puzzle was solved. Perhaps this destructive force of nature inside a woman’s body did have some kind of reason to be afraid. That Ruined Dragon was a king of sorts, though he wasn’t sure of what. Perhaps lightning, since that was his element. Having been on a higher pedestal, that means he was probably stronger than any other existing dragon in the world; that strength would have justified the Shy Gal’s fear. However, this would make the ordinary Shy Guy a little less ordinary. He was the one who had defeated the dragon, after all, alongside his sidekicks, Pak and Rok. That he could have taken on and defeated the Ruined Dragon as he so did felt almost paradoxical to the Shy Guy. He was ordinary. How could he have done something so irregular? “I have a headache,” Kan admitted. “My brain hurts.”  
“What’s on your mind?” Pak asked.  
“I’ve done so many fantastic things, and I just can’t grasp how,” Kan stated. “I’m just... ordinary.”  
“I told you before, Kan,” Tir smiled. “You’re fantastic. That’s why you didn’t need my help taking down that dragon. When I was afraid, you three leapt into action!”  
Kan stared at Tir in disbelief. “We ran away screaming basically the entire encounter, until the very end where Pak nearly sacrificed himself in a kamikaze attack.” He gestured to Pak.  
“Hi,” Pak chimed in.  
“Yo,” Rok began, “I think the bravest people, like, face their fears, even if they’re scary. Does that make us... heroes?”  
“I don’t know about that,” Kan began, “but I guess it makes us brave, at least.” The flying ship gently landed in Toadburg’s harbor. Kan hopped out of the Scurvy Scumbag and landed on the docks. “As brave as I was, I gotta tell ya, I think I’m done adventuring for a while. I’m gonna go home and continue living my ordinary life.”  
Rok climbed down the ship and carefully landed on the docks next to Kan. “I’m just going to stop here for a bit, actually. Then I’m gonna continue on adventuring. The seas await me, yo. I just need to get my feet on the ground before I take off again. This time, I’m gonna bring some items along!”  
“You know,” Pak began, “maybe if we’re famous enough as pirates, we can be even better than the Cannon Fighters! I’ve always wanted to be a part of their team, but now we’re even better than they were! I’ve never heard of them taking down a lightning-breathing dragon!”  
“And of course I’ll join you,” Tir added. “Isle Delfino didn’t really have anything going for me anyway. This life suits me much better.”  
“Well,” Kan said as he brushed them off and headed towards his simple hut, “you all have fun with that. I’m outskies. I’ve had my fill of adventuring. I’m done. Not going back out there, no way, no how, no haw-hee.”  
Rok put his arm around both Kan’s shoulders and brought him closer. “C’mon, dude, you know the sea’s-a callin’.” Rok slowly wiped his hand across the air and gestured towards the great ocean that lay before them. “You gotta feel the wave’s energy. It resonates with yours.”  
Kan followed Rok’s hand and said, “The only thing resonating with me is a severe lack of treasure. We went on that whole adventure, and I’m not a penny richer. Every single artifact we risked our lives and reputations for was blown away when Pak made that wish! It’s over.”  
“Kaaaan,” Pak whined from atop the Scurvy Scumbag. “Pleeeaaaase?”  
“Nope,” Kan asserted.  
“Well, fine,” Tir said compliantly. “I guess you’re just going to miss all the cash grabs we’re gonna pull.”  
The Shy Guy paused. There was a long silence. Kan held his breath. He looked from Rok, to Pak, then to Tir and repeated, “‘Cash grabs’? You mean, like, cash, right? Cash cash?”  
“Yeah,” Tir said with a sly grin.  
Kan pressed for more details. “And we go into peoples’ places, steal their cash, and then leave, right? That’s what we’re talking about?”  
“Oh, yeah,” said the Shy Gal with that same grin.  
“Well, boys,” stated the Shy Guy as he approached the Scurvy Scumbag, “I think we’re ready for round two.”  
“Great!” Tir cheered. “Then we can all start with a trip to Sarasaland! Nobody ever goes there anyway.”  
“W-Wait,” the Shy Guy stammered out, “Sarasa-what?”


	13. Epilogue: Sarasa-what?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every end implies a new beginning.

Princess Daisy stood on the roof of Peach’s castle and leaned forward as she gripped onto the flag and stared through a telescope towards the horizon. “Avast, ye landlubbers!” she shouted. “These seas be barren, and the waves are clear; methinks it’ll be smooth sailin’ today!”  
“Daisy!” she heard Peach’s voice calling from below. “Daisy, that’s dangerous! Come down from there!”  
The eccentric princess looked down through her telescope to see a massive face of a blonde woman who wore a cross expression. “Don’t look now, lads! We’ve found ourselves a sea monster!”  
Peach rolled her eyes and let out a sigh. “Just don’t fall and hurt yourself. Come down here soon, okay?”  
Daisy's telescope-holding arm slouched as she let out a groan. “I will in a bit! Cut me some slack. Mario and Luigi are still off on vacation, and I have nothing to do. Bowser hasn’t shown his ugly mug, and nobody’s trying to kidnap or kill me.” Still gripping onto the flag, the restless princess limply spun around and around in circles. “I’m so booooooored.”  
Toadsworth approached Peach. “I say, princess! Quite beautiful weather, isn’t it? And not a dark cloud in the sky, eh wot! Most attractive temperatures as well, tut!”  
“I agree, Toadsworth,” Peach nodded, though her eyes never left Daisy, who was recklessly spinning around in circles several tens of feet in the air. “I do hope that it’ll last.”  
“Indeed, princess!” Toadsworth enthused. “Prosperity awaits us! In fact, I’ve a most entertaining activity to remind you of. Do you recall the parade that the denizens of the Mushroom Kingdom organized? I thought I scheduled it in your calendar, but this old Toad’s memory is growing so withered with age; I cannot remember if I properly inked it down!”  
Daisy and Peach both looked at Toadsworth with shocked expressions. Daisy shouted from atop the castle, “Whoa! Did I hear something about a parade?” Daisy leapt off of the roof of the castle. “Yeet!”  
“Daisy!” Peach exclaimed.   
Glittery magic enveloped the tomboyish princess as Daisy harmlessly floated onto the ground. “See? I got this!” Daisy insisted. “Who cares about being full of care, or being careful?” Daisy retorted with a roll of her eyes. “Parade! Let’s talk about that! We finally have something to do around here, and I am hype for it! All aboard the hype train!” Daisy mimed pulling down the whistle of a locomotive. “Toot-tooooot!”  
“Quite so!” said Toadsworth, adjusting his spectacles. “Hoho, I am delighted to hear of your excitement, princess! The parade is scheduled for today in celebration of the Mushroom Kingdom’s persisting prosperity. We are proud to be Toads, eh wot! It should be happening later this afternoon. Please, take a moment to prepare yourself in whatever way you wish.”  
“Sweet, I’m gonna chuck this stupid dress into the sun!” Daisy exclaimed.  
Peach tolerated Daisy’s remark, took in a deep breath, and sighed. “I believe that this will do for me, thank you.”  
“Let me throw on my shorts! It’s too hot out here!” the more enthusiastic princess continued to shout. “I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m readyyyy!”  
Daisy darted into the castle. Peach and Toadsworth merely watched after her as she went. Toadsworth straightened his bowtie and said behind his ruffled ‘stache, “I say, that Daisy is quite galvanic, eh?”  
“Hmm, yes,” Peach agreed through her annoyance, “I suppose she is.”  
Toadsworth looked up at Peach through his spectacles and said, “Would it be so wrong to assume that you both could stand to learn something from each other?” The old Toad smiled at Peach. “I mean this in the most polite way possible, of course. Tut-tut!”  
Peach let out a hum in thought as she reflected over Toadsworth’s words. She watched after where Daisy had gone in preparation of the parade. “Perhaps you’re right, Toadsworth.”


End file.
